Also, I Love You
by LexLuthor13
Summary: Dark Reign' AU: Scott Lang used to be Ant-Man. Used to be married. Used to be dead. Now, Scott finds himself alive and well in a world he no longer recognises. What dark forces have brought him back? And what do they want with him?
1. On Target

**Author's Note: **The idea here is hopefully something different from my usual approach; the epistolary idea came to me while re-reading Stephen King's _Carrie_ a few weeks ago, and I've tried to make this a little choppier of a narrative than, say, my own _In Through The Out Door _or even _Powers_--the story from which this comes, but which you don't need to read (hopefully!) in order to get this one. So in addition to hammering out as solid of a timeline as I could, with regard to Scott's death (that is, assuming he was blown away in 2004 in the Marvel Universe proper), I've also taken some liberties with Scott's origin, while attempting my damndest to keep in line with his death in _Avengers: Disassembled _(even though I think listing 'spontaneous disintegration' as a COD is stupid). Anyway. The scurrilous among us will note Scott's date of death as the day Avengers #500 was released. We also snuck in a reference to Billy Kaplan, Wiccan from _Young Avengers_, and his old habit of waiting around Avengers Mansion for the Scarlet Witch. The 'Keg n Cork' does exist; it's a drive-thru in Springfield, Ohio with a delightful leprechaun logo that looks like it came from the University of Notre Dame. One of Scott's two friends was originally going to be named Buzz—a nod toward The Sentry (Robert Reynolds) who in college won the heart of one Lindy Lee from a Flash Thompson export named Buzz. So there's that. But for now, Scott Lang and the future Mrs. Ex-Scott Lang, aged 18, are a couple of oversexed high school juniors. If at any point I've elicited cries of 'character derailment!' or the like, please do chalk it up to some alternate-Scott. Or let me know. We'll fix it faster than you can say _House of M_.

* * *

_**New York-Presbyterian Hospital**_

_**Report of Decease **_**Today's Date:**_28 July 2004**  
**_

**Name**: _Scott Edward Harris Lang_** By**: _M. Reichner, MD_

**Address**: _890 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan 10021 (AKA Avengers Mansion)_

**DOB**: _12 April 1972_

**Emergency Room**: _None_ **Amb #**: _181_

**Treatment Admin**: _None_** DOA**: _Y_

**Time of Death**: _28 July 2004, 10.44 a.m. (approx)_

**Cause of Death**: '_Spontaneous disintegration',_ _acute myocardial infarction, shock, haemorrhage, immolation/TBSA burn 20%_

**Person identifying deceased**: _Steven Rogers, 890 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan (aka Avengers Mansion) 10021_

**Next of kin**: _Cassandra Lang, 149 Willow St., Brooklyn Heights 11201_

**Body to be released to**: _Stark Industries pending funerary arr._

**Doctor in attendance**: _M Reichner, MD_

**Pathologist**: _D Finch_

**Remarks: **_Additional info of superhuman nature forthcoming from D. Buckley, ME (Columbia University Medical Centre) + H. Pym (Empire State University Biological Sciences Dept.)

* * *

_

**From the 28 July 2004 broadcast of CNN's **_**Situation Room**_**:**

"At this time, we have no idea what's gone on at Avengers Mansion, except to say that around 10.45 this morning there was a massive explosion on the building's front steps that resulted in at least one death, that of Scott Lang, who our viewers might know as Ant-Man. Lang took over the position from Henry Pym, the renowned entomologist and physicist..."

* * *

**From the 29 July 2004 broadcast of FoxNews' **_**Hannity & Colmes**_**:**

"I think what a lot of us are forgetting is that this Lang—here's a guy that used to be a criminal! He broke into this Pym's house, made off with the-the Ant-Man gear—Pym follows him for some reason, and then next thing you know he's on the Avengers and then, boom, the Fantastic Four. This guy turned it around for himself and he didn't rely on anyone else to do it for him. That's, that's admirable..."

* * *

**From the November 2004 edition of **_**GQ**_** (cover featuring Scott Lang & Clint Barton):**

"We could do worse than to look at Scott Lang and Clint Barton as men of their times. As victims, probably, of an unflinching system that yet gave them another chance. We have Henry Pym, and Tony Stark (who, legend has it, was seen womping Electro in downtown Seattle last week with what smacked of a new Avengers team) to thank for that bit of clemency. For allowing us to be witness to a world where second chances actually mean something, especially in regards to our costumed heroes, who save us from threats we don't even know about. This is a level of sacrifice, of duty, and of purpose which we as reasonable people often overlook. This issue of GQ is dedicated with the utmost respect to Scott Lang and to Clint Barton: two heroes who gave their lives in service to 'we the people'. We honour them. And miss them..."

* * *

**Letter from Scott Lang to Peggy Rae Blankenship:**

_Jan 12, 1989_

_Peggy,_

_I'm afraid I'm going to have to die tonight. I'm at the Keg and Cork getting liquored up on A&W and Mike and Shi are making fun of me and I just don't think I can take it anymore. Handsome young guy like me doesn't just fall into a handsome young gal like yours lap every day. So when you get this—because your answering machine is clogged full, and because I'm sure your dear old mom is still hell-bent on that restraining order, I hope you'll see fit to pop on down here and give me a hey-you because if you don't I'm half-tempted to run off to Berkeley with Shi just to stick it to you. Wow, that was a really big run-on__. At least think about coming down here sometimes; the guys joke but they really want to meet you. Mostly I just want to rub it in Mike's face that you're not imaginary. Also, I love you._

_--Scotius

* * *

_

**Now:**

Scott Lang stood naked in front of his bathroom mirror. One of those door-mounted affairs anchored into the particle board some freaking how by plastic slats and improbably small screws. The glass had thin little strands of steam still covering it at the edges, and cast Scott's body in a gaunt and tanned halo of unfamiliarity.

He was looking at his body, but it was like looking at some other body. It looked all wrong. He used to be Scottie Freaking Lang. Now it seemed a vague shadow. The outline of his body was all wrong. The shoulders seemed higher, more defined. The pecs, which were normally pouty on their own, were stockier, more robust and muscular, and the ribs making his skin furrow did a curving sort of herringbone down his sides, pointing to his crotch. He thought for a moment that his nipples and navel put together looked like a tiny little surprised face. Mr Bill going 'oh no!'

He widened his stance and the muscles covering his thighs stood out. Further down his toes flexed upwards as he balanced. He leaned forward, pressing his nose against the glass, then his forehead, and feeling the coolness of the glass. Sweat was strolling down the back of his neck in leisurely bands.

He sighed.

In a few minutes, he was going to have to go out there and deal with this.

This coming back from the dead shit.

He reached one arm out to the countertop, grasped the briefs, and pulled the arm back. Slid on the damn things. Then trousers, flat-front black things with straight legs and no imagination. The shirt hung on the hanger next to the door, a white and boring affair. The tie was coiled on the counter next to the trousers. In five minutes he was pulling on the jacket and loosening the tie already.

He looked lazy. Hadn't bothered to shave. His hair hung on his head in nettled strands and he didn't care to clear it up.

He sighed again. Pulled the door open and shoved his hands in his pockets and made down the hallway.

Twelve floors down, Susan Storm was waiting with the car. Scott would be down there in no time, and then they'd have to drive to fucking Humboldt's office. To deal with this.

* * *

**Deposition of Scott Edward Harris Lang, Defendant, and Peggy Rae Lang née Blankenship, Complainant, regarding at-fault divorce proceedings in the city, county, and state of New York.**

**Begin Transcript:**

_Humboldt_: Now, Mr Lang, I'd like to go over the allegations once more if it's not going to put you in too much of a bind.

_Lang_: No, go ahead.

_Humboldt_: One, that you wilfully engaged in behaviours dangerous and detrimental to your daughter, Cassandra Lang, of Brooklyn Heights, with regard to your presence on the Avengers team. Two, that said behaviour was also detrimental to the emotional and physiological well-being of your spouse, Ms Peggy Rae Blankenship. Three, that prior to your inclusion on the Avengers team, you wilfully indulged in criminal acts in regard to the person and property of Henry Pym of Milltown, New Jersey. Four, that those acts received no criminal punitive damages. Five, that you repeatedly expressed intent to act on criminal impulses again in the future. The charge as delivered in the Superior Court of Manhattan on the twelfth day of April, 1992, is of criminal negligence and child endangerment, to which you have pleaded not guilty. In response to the plea bargain entered thereafter and as a preventative measure with regard to Cassandra's well-being, Ms Blankenship filed for divorce. Is the information stated correct, to the best of your knowledge?

_Lang_: Yes.

_Humboldt_: Have you anything further to add? Any questions?

_Lang_: Just one. That charge, child endangerment. Am I to assume that was my wife's doing?

_Humboldt_: Yes.

_Lang_: Okay.

_Humbolt_: Uh.

_Lang_: What?

_Humboldt_: Have you...any response to the charges?

_Lang_: No. They seem ironclad enough. My wife must certainly know what she's talking about, for someone who hates even going into the city.

_Humboldt_: Let's try to stay on target shall we?

* * *

**Now:**

"Mr Lang? Are we on target?"

He looked up at Humboldt, as bloated and contumely as ever, with a vague and disaffected look. Scott hadn't been looking at his own body an hour ago in the bathroom, and he wasn't even here in this room. He was going through the motions. Like a sad and unwaking dream, it all ran together. No separation.

He ran a hand over his face, stopping to rub his eyes and then going on, stopping against to scratch the skin over his chin..

"Yeah," he said, and waved his finger in a circle. "Yeah, I'm here."

"Right." Humboldt sounded fussy and shifted, irritated, in his chair. The tie around his neck was a horrendous repp of pink and brown and made Scott hate him even more.

Donald Humboldt had been Peggy's lawyer since time began. It was almost the first thing they did on coming to New York. She hired a lawyer to take care of the estate of her late mother, the asthmatic and dying Estelle Blankenship, of East Egg Long Island (formerly of Coral Gables, FL), who even on her deathbed cursed Scott's name to the great Marlboro Country in the sky. And for some reason, Donald "Duck" Humboldt had stayed around. Claimed Peggy could pay him in lutefisk for all he cared—though Scott suspected this was a clever marketing trick he took from Nelson & Murdock in Hell's Kitchen, who legend had it were getting paid in fluke. Stylistically, Humboldt dressed like the overweight and overwrought logical endpoint of the corporate cubical model. Short-sleeve dressed shirt tucked in so as to accentuate the disgustingness of the middle-aged man's greatest foe, the spare tire. Ties always loose, collars always flat against a flabby chest and wide, sagging shoulders. Maybe a comb-over (Scott suspected Humboldt had been bald as far back as 6th grade and simply used a dead raccoon for cover). And godawfulass striped ties from Dilbert's nightmares.

Scott's lips quivered and made a bare little scowl.

Jesus Christ on a crutch he hated Don Humboldt.

Mostly because the fat little shit was the black hole into which Scott Lang's money had gone.

But all the records had gone to Humboldt after the divorce, and, Scott had to guess, after the little adventure at the Mansion. Peggy had inherited the windfalls, and the insurance payout. She was set for life after that, and it was all because Scott got blown to hell by Jack of Hearts.

He let out a scoff through his nostrils. Irony.

How long ago was that?

Reed Richards had been mum on the subject, probably because

(he doesn't want you to know!)

he didn't want to shock Scott's system. The whole "lo, what things you have missed!" speech.

Scott's daughter was the one with the heart condition, but Scott wondered if he could keel over from a happy little infarction some day.

'Course, he hadn't gotten around to reading his own death certificate.

That came next.

"Now," Humboldt said as he leant over the coffee table separating the fatso lawyer from Sue Storm and Scott himself. "We have a lot to go over, but I promise I'll only take about a half hour of your life, Scott."

(oh by all means take all you want, you slobbering piece of)

"That's fine," he said. And then: "Give it to me in three sentences or less."

"Okay." Humboldt's lips pursed and his face looked red. Scott wondered if it had always been that way. "The estate taxes remain unchanged, essentially; you're lucky to have been paid off at the time of, uh, your. Uh. Passing."

Scott angled an eyebrow. That was something at least.

Humboldt thumbed through the stack of papers, his phalange-sausages curling in and out and sticking to the pages with his gross saliva plastered across Scott's will. Across the divorce settlement. The insurance claims from Stark Enterprises and Fantastic Four, Inc.

"Now," Humboldt said and held the Fantastic Four, Inc. end of life payout sheet an inch from his bird-nose. "These all check-out. Matter of fact, it all checks out. I've never seen anything like it, though I guess that's to be expected. There's just one thing I want to ask."

"Yeah?"

Humboldt leaned forward and stuck his hands between his fat legs, touching fingertips to fingertips in a downturned prayer type look. Scott wondered if Humboldt's head was going to pop off from the shirt, severely squeezing the bloated whale carcass beneath and casting white dots of numbness on a field of red skin.

"What was it like?"

"What?" Scott's mouth twisted into a scowl. "What was what like?"

"You know. Coming back."

Scott rolled his eyes and stood. Sue followed him and he turned back half and said, "I want Matt Murdock."

Sue turned promptly and gathered the files—Scott's life—from the overlapping mess on Humboldt's coffee table. "Be expecting that call, Donald," she said, and turned to leave.

Scott was holding the door for her.

* * *

**Letter from Peggy Rae Blankenship to Scott Lang:**

_January 21 '89_

_Scottie,_

_Last night was great, and I want to thank you for showing a gal a good time. I know this sounds like Grease or Carrie or something (maybe not Carrie since there was def no blood involved!), but I really appreciated it. I'm glad we did it and that you were able to keep up. Ha ha ha. Don't be a stranger anymore, okay? Mom's bark is a lot worse than her bite._

_-Peg

* * *

_

**Letter from Scott Lang to Peggy Rae Blankenship:**

_Jan 22 1989_

_Peggius,_

_As you can see, the Latin tutor's working out really well. You'd like him, maybe I could fix you two up? (hah!) Anyway, I got your last letter; Shi ran me down on my way out of the computer lab (the Macintosh SE is one slick bitch; I might dump you & run away with one) and slapped it in my hand. I gotta ask: you asking me to come around more, is that the closest I'm gonna get to an 'I love you, Scott'? Anyway, you get your way: catch you after school? Also, I was driving to school this morning and found your bra. It was in the glove box for some reason. You were looking for it, and I didn't want to you to think I was holding out on you just so I could see the goods out bouncing during gym. That was a plus though. Also, I love you._

_--Scotius

* * *

_

**Then:**

Humboldt's office was done up in dark shades of green and brown. The wainscoting ran all the way around, in divided slats the width of Peggy's zippo. The walls were deep green, and went pretty good with the banker's lamp on Humboldt's desk, the craned-neck kind with a beaded pull-string and bulb in the shape of a squat Popsicle. The whole effect cast a rotund glare around Humboldt's gut. His tie hung loose at his neck and his moustache ruffled every time he spoke. His eyes were bulgy and on the bottom supported by faded black sacs. He looked deathly.

His throat rumbled as he spoke.

"Peggy?"

"Huh?"

"I asked if you were alright."

Blake was there with her, sitting the red leather chairs angled in front of Humboldt's desk. His hand over hers, his fingers grasping hers tightly. It was a dog and pony show, and she knew it, but it made her feel a little better.

Certainly better than Scott ever did.

'Course, none of that mattered now.

Scott was gone.

That's why they were here.

"Yeah," Peggy said and touched a hand to her forehead. "Just give me a minute."

Blake looked at her. Italian immigrant by trade, third or fourth generation if Peggy remembered correctly. One of New York's Finest. And the uniform, and the way he looked in it?

_Oh baby..._

It took about twenty seconds of coercing, and that was ever so gentle, to get her out on a date with him.

He squeezed her hand again and she sighed and looked back at Humboldt.

"Okay," she said.

Humboldt's head made a slight waver from side to side as he spoke, testing the waters and not wanting to overstep himself. "Is there anything else you'd want to add to the service? Specific requests, a guest list?"

"Uh."

It was all in order. That wasn't the problem.

Service at Avengers Mansion, or what was left of it, for Scott. No burial.

Stark had said there was nothing left. Not even a body and so no need for burial. As if things were that cut and dry.

So it was all memorialism.

And Peggy didn't know why that bothered her.

"No," she said at last.

"Will you be speaking?" Humboldt said.

"Should I?"

Humboldt's eyes flashed and his bushy eyebrows went up in unison. "Well I suppose, but that's really your call. Depends on how comfortable you'd be."

"I don't know," she said and looked away and touched the hand to her chin. Her head itched and she scratched it, and let out a quiet snort. Couldn't even have a good pensive moment.

Blake was leaning in to her and rasping in her ear. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, babe."

"He's right," Humboldt said. "Mister Stark and I have been in contact. Everything's going to be fine."

Time passed in a blank and unwaking way for Peggy Burdick. The days ran together after Scott's death—or blowing-away—and it hit its lowest point when she found herself on the couch watching DVRs of Maury.

She wiped the Cheetos off her chest and stood up and said, "Oh God." The remote slipped from her hands and it was then that she just. Kind of. Collapsed.

Blake found her on the floor there, huddled into herself and crying. Whimpering into her arms and letting out an indistinct moan every so often that sounded, or so Blake Burdick thought, like 'Scott'.

The memorial service for Scott had gone...well, it had gone.

Peggy went through it in a perpetual numbness. Blake was on one side of her the whole time, Cassie was on the other. Some no-account working for _New York Post_ got in Peggy's face and asked her what she thought of the whole "super-hero thing" now that her husband was dead, and Blake broke the guy's nose. Cassie stared after the poor bastard with practised indifference, and let herself hate Blake a little more.

So as memorials for fallen Avengers go—particularly for this one, who as it turned out had been blown away by something Stark and Reed Richards called a "psychic avatar" of the Scarlet Witch's doing—the service went pretty okay for Peggy Burdick. No one had asked her just who she thought she was, or give Blake hell for being the replacement, or patted Cassie's shoulder and told her to hang in there.

It hadn't even rained.

Everyone had parted ways at the Mansion gates. Blake had gone to get the car and pull it around. Peggy and Cassie stayed to talk to Richards and Stark, and out of the corner of her eye, Peggy noticed Cassie noticing a boy across the street. Peggy paced around and Stark compensated, so she could look over his shoulder. Cassie, leaning against a lightpost with her hands running up and down her purse nervously, stealing glances every few minutes at the boy on the stone bench across the street.

The boy with black hair, a wisp of it swooped in front of a black eye and a bloody nose, with a white shirt and cord pants, one leg crossed over the other. Like he was waiting for something.

Blake tore around the corner in Peggy's Charger—she had demanded Blake didn't drive the cruiser; last thing they needed was to be seen leaving Avengers Mansion in the backseat with Manhattan Bob.

Peggy slid in the front seat. Cassie slunk into the back, and as they drove away she was craning out the back window, looking at the boy on the stone bench.

Peggy relaxed in her seat and ran her hands through her hair, short and blonde and out of the way and gelled up to infinity. The muscles under her eyebrows tensed and made the dark strips on the skin angle down. She was making an angry face to hide the insecurity.

"Peg, you okay?" Blake asked.

"Yeah," she said and looked out the window. The muscles smoothed out and the eyes narrowed, looking out at the street with some dark wonder.

She hated those Avengers.

She wanted them to know it, too.

They turned onto 42nd street and it started. Peggy's eyes welled up and there was burning in her nose. Then she started crying, and buried her head in her hands.

_Oh, Scott...

* * *

_

**From The Desk of Daniel Buckley, ME **

**Columbia University Medical Centre:**

_Aug 12 2004_**  
**

_"Mr Stark,_

_I wanted to thank you for extending me an invitation to yesterday's memorial service for Scott Lang at Avengers Mansion. It was both moving and memorable, and you have every assurance that Mr Lang's remains were treated with the utmost respect while under autopsy. The report of decease is attached for your convenience, as is a transcript of our conversation of Aug 4 (also appended), drawn up by Franklin Nelson of Nelson & Murdock LLC and constituting a verbal contract. This was done strictly for legal purposes and to avoid any entanglement either with the United Nations or the federal government. Presently Mr Lang's remains are on their way to your Coney Island facility, in agreement with our arrangement and conversation of Aug 4 (see appended). My sympathies, once more, on the loss of your team-mate. If I may be of any further assistance, do call me directly or let the Departmental secretary know._

_Best,_

_Dan"_

* * *

**From the Desk of Tony Stark:**

_Aug 14, 04_

_"Dan, I got your letter—thank you for it, it was a wonderful reminder of why we're in this business in the first place, and a great memorial to our friend Scott. His body arrived here yesterday; please be assured that we have taken every precaution and that he will most definitely rest in peace. Thank you for your help, and please thank Franklin Nelson for me as well. He's a credit to Columbia._

_Best,_

_Tony"_

* * *

**Cassie Lang's Journal **

_May 12th '03_

_"Mom's being stupid again. I know she thinks about Dad, I just know it. She thinks about him every night, I swear, I can see it in her eyes. I guess I don't really get the whole picture, but I guess maybe sometimes I do. I dunno. I mean, I was at the Mansion last week (Mr Stark said hi to me!) with Dad, and I know he doesn't mention mom either, but I think he misses her too. I hope so. My birthday was last week and Blake—and that's all I'm gonna call him b/c mom can take this 'he's your dad' stuff and shove it—got me a freakkin EZ bake oven. What is that?! Like, maybe if he sat down and actually tried to talk to me, then maybe I'd care. But it just looks really REALLY lazy what he's doing. I know he's crazy about mom, but maybe I just wish he'd be crazy about me. I mean, I'm part of this too. Maybe I just wish mom'd mention dad once in awhile. I know she misses him. I just wish she'd stop trying to show me that she doesn't (miss him that is). More tomorrow._

_PS: OMG when Mom came to pick me up from the Mansion last week there was this really cute boy on a stone bench across the street. We sort of smiled at each other but he looked real sad. On my way home tomorrow maybe I'll try and talk to him._

_–Cass"

* * *

_

**Continued...**_  
_


	2. Adrift

_**Author's Note**_: Aside from certain liberties I've taken with the back stories of Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson, this instalment also deals with Scott Lang's relationship with his not-so-beloved ex-wife, Peggy Rae. In a broader way, the idea for this story comes chiefly from Brian Bendis' _Mighty Avengers_ #20, which concerned itself with Hank Pym's return to the world after his absence--replacement in fact, by a Skrull sleeper agent that had him pegged from the end of _Avengers: Disassembled_. The parallels with Dr Pym's story in that issue are most notable here. I suspect it makes sense, too, given the connection between Scott and Pym. I've also decided to put Loki back in this story as part of a calculated back-burner plot involving the Cabal's distant interest in Scott Lang and his place in the new world. While it's on my mind, be on the look out in future chapters for more of Loki, Emma Frost, Osborn and--you guessed it--The Good Doctor himself (you know the one I mean!). And if you're waiting for Scott to reencounter his beloved daughter Cassie? Keep a weather eye, Dear Readers. It's coming.

* * *

**Now.**

**Nelson & Murdock, LLC.**

Matt Murdock was an astonishingly accomplished man. In 37 years, incidentally Scott's own age, Murdock had come up from the absolute worst Hell's Kitchen had to offer and made himself into the preeminent lawyer for the five boroughs. If you had something that needed suing or 'straightening out' as they called it, Murdock and Nelson did it. They were that good.

Even Nelson.

The glen plaid suit and the bowtie and the slightly harried demeanour were either brilliant ways to feign ignorance, or a genuine act. Both got results.

Both of them had graduated from Columbia at the top of their class. They were sharks. Absolute predators in their field.

And they knew it.

The upside of this was that Scott Lang had known Matt Murdock for years. Knew he was a decent man who'd sooner kill a nun than let justice go unserved.

Murdock had the same blind pursuit for the abstraction that Scott did.

Stark and Pym could talk all they wanted about realism and seeing the future, and to a certain extent so could Reed Richards. About how the world of the future lay confidently within their reach. In some odd way, that was even more abstract that Murdock and Scott Lang pursuing Immanuel Kant in spandex.

Currently, Murdock sat behind an oak desk, the antique kind with ornate carvings laid into the front and finished in enough lacquer to make it look like a molasses cube. The light from the banker's lamp reflected dimly of the finish yet seemed to illuminate the whole room. The diploma from Columbia hung in a slim space of wall behind Murdock, the crème-coloured expanse between two bay windows that gave an excellent view of 48th Street.

He was dressed in black, except for the shirt underneath, which was white, and the blood-red tie. His sunglasses, also the colour of blood, hung loosely off his face. And his hair looked messy. Maybe like he had a black eye.

Murdock thumbed through the transcript of the divorce and made a face. He was looking at the desk, but his fingers were gliding over the print. It wasn't even in Braille.

Murdock didn't feel the need to humour Scott, and told him as much.

Scott's mouth hung open for a moment, waiting for the words to come or for Murdock to speak. Then he said, "Okay, Matt, now what?"

"I'm thinking," Murdock said and sighed. Sat back in his chair, a rich rocker in red leather, and angled his head at the ceiling. Then he spoke again and looked at Scott through those blood-red lenses, and his voice was measured and calm. "Scott, I don't know why you're here. Everything checks out."

Scott looked at Sue Storm, in the chair next to him. "Um," he said and touched a hand to his lips. "Can you give me a minute, Sue?"

She glanced at Murdock, then at Scott. Simply said, "Sure." Grabbed her purse and slid out. When the door shut, Scott slumped forward in his chair and bit and wiped his face. Then he looked at Murdock.

"I know it all checks out, Matt, I just didn't want to talk to that asshole Humboldt anymore. He's been Peggy's little weasel since time began. I didn't want to deal with that. Not during the divorce and not during. This. Whatever this is."

"We're trying to bring you back to life," Murdock said and steepled his fingers so they obscured his mouth. The whole thing looked sinister. Except that Scott knew better. He hoped. Then Murdock leaned forward and flipped through the stack, stopping at the report of decease from NY-P. "It's not an easy process, but I promise you, Scott, I'm going to do everything I can to make it tolerable."

"Thank you," Scott said and it sounded as hollow as hell.

"You can thank me later. I want to go over the specifics again. Is that okay?"

"Sure, sure." Scott waved a hand. "Go ahead."

"Okay," Murdock said. "Now, coming back from the dead—there's really no better phrase for it, so you're going to have to bear with me on this—but coming back from the dead isn't unheard of. We had to do this for Pyotr Rasputin a year or so ago, we—"

"Rasputin?" Scott whispered and his face twisted, unbelieving. "Colossus? He's back?"

"Yes," Murdock said. "Turns out he never died. Was being held captive by a bunch of space aliens and some genetics firm upstate."

"Geez." Scott's voice broke and he looked at the floor, an oriental runner in dark green, with winding strands of red and gold. He looked back at Murdock and his jaw was slackened. Again. "What?" he said and it hung in the air. "How long was I gone?"

Murdock's eyes flashed up again. "We can go through all that later," he said. "Right now I think it's important to get this paperwork cleared up. We need to open those accounts again and get you a place to live. And that's just for starters."

"Matt."

Murdock stopped thumbing through the stack. His blind eyes looked through the red glasses and stayed on Scott.

"I don't give a damn about the money. Just. Tell me everything," Scott said. "Please."

* * *

**Now. Manhattan**

**Starbucks on 57****th**** Street.**

"Macchiato," Billy Kaplan said. The cute little blonde number at the counter flashed batty eyelashes at him and leaned over the counter to take his money. Overacting his barista bit in all the wrong places. Billy gave an appreciative smile and slid down the rank. As he did he eyeballed a suspicious macadamia nut cookie under the glass. His mouth curled into a rounded scowl and his eyebrows lowered, drawing the skin on his forehead tight.

The jet-black coif was frozen in time and space. The wonders of a styling gel known to Billy and to God—and the stylist of one Rebecca Kaplan of the Upper West Side. Natch. Raj had been doing Rebecca Kaplan's hair for years and squealed, oddly enough, like a little girl when Billy sat down in his chair asking to look like Rafael Nadal circa 2005.

'Course that style didn't last too long; Billy never got used to the greasy, clingy locks sticking to the back of his neck. A week later he'd told Ronaldo to shorten the bitch up (Rbecca had poo-pooed the language. Natch) and bring out the hair horn in front, like the red-haired guy on that Futurama show, only more messy.

That was the vibe. And it suited him.

A silver pair of aviators hung loosely off his nose. Billy amused himself every so often by doing the annoyed librarian bit, grabbing one temple and glaring over the rims at something gross.

He was doing it to the questionable macadamia under the glass when the barista belted out, "Macchiato!" at the pick-up.

Billy said "oh," like it was an afterthought and got the macchiato and turned around in a swift and actually really sort of unmessy way. Ahead the place was more or less empty.

A couple in the corner near the men's room, necking and not paying attention to their Sulawesi.

And one guy in the two-seater by the window. Nursing one of the Christmas-edition carrier cups in both hands.

He was wearing a loose cord jacket, the colour of grass, covering a yellow thermal and a yellow hat that had letters for something called 'CAT Power Equipment' on the front. The denim trousers had twin gashes across the knees that showed scabbed caps and scarred skin;, and had smaller striations up and down them; were faded in varying circles on the front from acid wash. The boots were caked in mud. But the face was the same: slender, with a patrician nose and a bare smirk.

He looked like Hugo Weaving if Hugo Weaving was a construction worker.

In an instant they locked eyes and Billy shot him a humoured smile before pushing the door open.

"Billy Kaplan," Construction Hugo said.

Billy turned on a dime and looked back at him.

The face was clean; if he had indeed been on a site—maybe Trump's newfangled thing uptown—it wasn't showing.

Construction Hugo was still holding his coffee in both hands. He smiled at it and then up at Billy, who stood motionless in the doorway.

"Have a seat." Construction Hugo extended a hand out.

Billy. Poor mild-mannered Billy, raised impeccably and always respectful of elders, even if they were strangers, obliged. If it came down it though, and he figured this out in about two seconds in the back of his mind, could blast this guy with a thing of lightning.

_That's usin' your ass, Bill._

Construction Hugo held his hand there and the chair slid out.

On its own.

Billy pretended not to shit his pants a little at that. Raised impeccable sure, but in all the wrong situations, kind of easily startled. But he sublimated it pretty well.

"The great Billy Kaplan," Construction Hugo said.

"Yeah," Billy said. His shoulders were tense and his stomach was turning itself into a fist. He realized he was quite properly on the edge of his seat but didn't want to move. Something was.

Compelling him.

To stay here.

"Do you know who I am?" Construction Hugo asked and took a long swig from the coffee.

"Uh. Not really."

Construction Hugo sat the cup back down, sighed. His face took on a momentarily worried look: the eyes narrowed and the skin on his face creased into laugh-lines and crow's-feet. "I am Loki," he said after a moment.

Billy's mouth curved into a smile, slowly. "Right," he said and drew it out. The great prankster. "Nice one. I'll be going now."

He tried to stand.

And.

Couldn't.

He clenched his fingers around the seat's edge and pulled.

"It won't work," Construction Hugo said. "I've bound you here."

"You know I can counter it."

"I very much doubt that."

"I happen to be a skilled mystic," Billy said and cocked an eye. He was aping his own adolescent annoyances and projecting them at this Loki, or whoever the hell he was calling himself.

Construction Hugo pulled the lid from the cup and set it aside. "You're an amateur. Worse," he said. "You haven't the proper, how should I say, training in your magic."

"Gee, thanks."

"You've been," Construction Hugo said, "Living in a dream. Coddled and misled by Captain America. And Stephen Strange."

Billy leaned forward and made a hard look. Channelled Springsteen, sure (courtesy of the Teddy Altman Music Library, natch), but hard all the same. If this was really Loki, the true-blue God of Mischief, who's been hassling the Avengers since time began, then Billy wanted to see how far he could push it.

"Look, muchacho. I don't know what you're talking about."

Construction Hugo smiled and looked at Billy with a cocked head and a vague, amused look. Glassy eyes that Billy thought he could see himself in.

"Of course you do. You met with Strange three months ago. He needed to see if you were of the material from which comes a Sorcerer Supreme. Correct?"

_Nuts_.

Billy's lips pursed on their own. His nostrils narrowed and muscles underneath the skin contracted, giving him a slight snort. The jig was up.

"Alright," Billy said. "Fine. Yes. You're right. Turns out I didn't have it. Whatever it was. 'Course it didn't matter. The Hood ambushed us. Nearly killed Dr Strange."

"And in response, your friends hiding out in Brooklyn almost killed The Hood."

"He deserved it."

Construction Hugo looked surprised at that. The eyebrows arched even more than they did naturally. And he let out a chuckle. Drank his coffee.

"Okay," Billy said. His jaw was clenched tight and one eyebrow was higher than the other. It was overacting and they both knew it. But Billy had an ace up his sleeve. Hoped so, anyway. "Say you're really the all-powerful God of Mischief. The great and powerful Oz. Tell me something a God of Mischief would know. About me."

Construction Hugo set the coffee cup down with a sigh and looked at Billy with a find and glazed look in his eye.

"Your name is William Kaplan. Son of Jeffrey and Rebecca, of the Upper West Side. Age sixteen. One brother, Thomas, also aged sixteen. But that is the public story, is it not. The one you tell others. The ones your parents might even believe in their private moments. But deep down you do know. Don't you?"

Loki leaned in. The eyes were deep green and Billy felt the presence in his deepest parts. Felt his balls shrivel, and made a twisted face at that. Tried to shift in his chair but couldn't.

Loki went on. "I also know the real story. The one not even Stark or Captain America knew. The one Stephen Strange had an idea about. The one they all thought about but could not confirm. Do you even know the truth, young master?"

"I think I have a good idea," Billy said. Ever the rock.

"The Scarlet Witch," Loki said. And grinned. "You're a manifestation of her powers. Reality manipulation yields powerful results, don't you find, William? You have all her powers. All her skills—and with better ones beside, thanks to your team-mates. How have you not reordered reality yet?"

Billy's expression changed at that. The Springsteen hardness smoothed into a gentle confusion. He merely eked out, "What?"

Loki sat back in his seat. "You are the eventuality of Wanda Maximoff's insanity. You must know it."

"I do."

"You went searching for her," Loki said and sounded calm and attractive. "Did you not?"

"I did. We didn't find anything."

Loki snorted. "She does not want to be found."

Billy looked around. Irritated. "What do you want?

"I have a few questions that need answering and you're just the one to do it."

_That was easy._ Billy managed a shrug. "Looks like I don't have a choice."

Loki scoffed. "You always have a choice, Billy Kaplan. Never let anyone tell you different."

"What's the catch?"

"I want you to tell me about your Young Avengers. About the one you call Teddy Altman—who my allies call 'Hulkling' and who the Skrulls called Dorrek the Eighth. But mostly, I want you to tell me exactly what you know about Cassandra Lang. And her dear old father."

"And what if I don't?"

Loki let out an amused cackle. He seemed to be made of them. Idly he inspected the fringes on his jacket lapels with the scrutiny of a laboratory scientist. "At this critical juncture, you can either hear what I have to say and come with me of your own volition. Or you can refuse. I can kill you. And no one will miss you."

The God of Mischief stood. He crossed his arms over the tattered green jacket and locked eyes on Billy. Again.

"I refuse."

Loki's lips thinned. He hadn't expected that.

"Do whatever you like," Billy said. "Kill me. I'm not going to give up my team-mates. You can take your magic hat and shove it. It didn't work on the original Avengers and it won't work on me."

Then Loki's eyes narrowed too. Billy felt a little less zapped by his invisible God-o-Vision when that happened and let out a sigh.

Then Loki was in his face, his mouth open an inch, on the verge of speech.

"I was plaguing this earth's heroes when you were swimming into Wanda Maximoff's ovaries. While you were sidling up to young Theodore, I was masterminding my return to power and seizure of Asgard. You believe I am not Loki? Guess again."

"No," Billy said again. "Consider me on your shit list, I don't care. You don't scare me."

Loki—Construction Hugo—flipped out two crumpled bills on the table as a tip. Then made for the door.

"William," Loki said. "Do not underestimate my powers. You have forty-eight hours to rethink your life, and to give me what I want. Or no amount of self-help books will bring you back from where I shall take you."

* * *

**Scott Lang.**

**1995:**

It's midnight in the house of ye olde Avengers Mansion, the upstairs bedroom of which so happens to contain me and Peggy. My. What exactly? Wife is such a loaded term. Not to mention that it dates us both and connects me to her mother, who I'm reasonably sure is the devil. As it so happens 'Madame Esty' looks like Ethel Merman, but god damn she lacks any of dear old Ethel's redeeming qualities. Like, it wouldn't kill her to be nice. Actually I'd love to say that but I'm not sure it wouldn't kill her. A smile might just overtax her enough and send her into a seizure. The kind where you take a header right into a tile floor or a brick wall. The kind that fucks you up and turns you into a veggie for the rest of your life.

This is what I'm thinking about? Sure. With good reason.

While I'm lying here on the floor, on what appears to be (and certainly smells like) shag carpet from the long ago days of Tricky Dick?

While Peggy's straddling me and kneading baby oil or canola oil or something into my back muscles?

Yes. This is what I think about.

About how much Peggy waltzes in and out of hating me. How tonight isn't one of those hate nights--the ones she'd ordinarily save for something like the Hebraic Book Club or Save the Whales.

True story.

The massage-sex road is an old bit. One, as it turns out, she happens to use when she wants something.

Time was we'd just knock one off in the Firebird—totally classy, right?—but I introduced something fun starting senior year. The ritual usually went that we'd grab a pint at the Keg N' Cork with Mike and Shi—the four of us, with round-robin let's hit on Peggy and see who she hits with her purse first—then head back and watch a movie. My place most of time. The parentals couldn't be bothered to be interested in my life, after all, so free reign wasn't a problem. Like, ever. C'est la fucking vie.

Peggy likes 'Romancing the Stone'. After that, when one of us is usually half-asleep the other's wide awake and starts the petition, and from there on its two hours of glory.

Anyway, that got bored about the fourth time in. So I started faking soreness. 'Oh my back's messed up, I don't know Peggy'. At which point she'd force me on the floor, face-down in the muck and the dust, haul my shirt up and start. Well. A really amateurish massage.

Anyway. It's cheap and hokey and everything else along those lines, but dammit it worked and because it was Peggy, I indulged the wackiness. Especially because it seemed a little harder to get.

That was, oh man, five years ago.

The fact that she's doing it again tonight—that tells me something.

She misses me. It's like we've been on different planets for the past three years and yet we haven't. We've been pretty much side-by-side. Maybe that's what this was. We've been so together that we've gone apart.

Trippy shit. Not stuff I usually go in for, but maybe it's true.

I don't know. But there's something else. Like Peg and I are moving apart. Which is unfortunate.

I still love her. I mean, despite the rows and shouting matches. I mean. Shit. She's the love of my life. What am I supposed to supplant her with? I can't help this whole adrift feeling. It's unsettling. That's the word I'm using. Peggy sure isn't helping things either.

Maybe she's getting tired of me. Despite what we spent the night doing.

She keeps kneading baby oil into my shoulders, but it feels like an act. I can feel her not caring. Weird as that is. It's all slow-motion, at-all-points type stuff. Like the divorce papers are already being served to me. Like this is all some fever dream. Like I'm going through the motions and I have a vague idea of what they're supposed to be.

Three hours later I'm fucking her brains out and I don't even know why.

Because I feel like she's going to shut me out at any minute. Because I see the way she looks at that cop that strolls up and down 5th Avenue all the time.

Cassie, asleep in the next room, notwithstanding...

* * *

**Now. Nelson & Murdock LLC.**

Scott listened as Murdock laid it all out. As much as Murdock knew anyway—and he was careful to pinpoint this; that he didn't know everything and had only been informed by Richards as late as last month.

Wanda Maximoff being responsible for his death. How, as close as anyone could tell, Jack was a psychic projection. How his explosion was an outburst of her cracking psyche. Murdock said Richards likened it to a solar flare.

The rest of what happened that day. She-Hulk's rampage. The Vision's death. How they all thought it was Ultron. Then the Kree showing up. Hawkeye taking a header into their engines and then their inexplicable disappearance. Stephen Strange showing up and swearing that everything was Wanda's fault. That she had finally snapped.

Nick Fury going underground. Captain America's new Avengers team, which for some reason had Spider-Man on it.

The House of M 'incident', where Wanda recreated the world and gave everyone what they wanted most. Where her father, Magneto, enslaved humans, and was eventually ousted by Wolverine. 'Cause it's always Wolverine.

The superhuman civil war. Stamford getting destroyed. Bill Foster getting electrocuted and impaled by the insane Thor clone. The creation of the Thor clone. Cap's underground Avengers, and Tony's new Avengers team meant to hunt them down.

Captain America dying.

The Hulk apparently coming back to Earth after apparently being exiled. Enslaving Iron Man and Reed Richards and fighting someone Murdock kept calling The Sentry to a standstill in the middle of Manhattan.

The Skrulls' failed invasion. How they made Henry Pym—or a Skrull masquerading as him—their face. The ones they supplanted. The ones they didn't. The battle in Central Park and the appearance of Uatu as the tide turned. How they killed Janet. How Norman Osborn (yes, that Norman Osborn--another thing Murdock was clear on) got the kill-shot on the Skrull Queen, who had been impersonating Spider-Woman.

And how Osborn was running things now.

Considering the enormity of it all, Scott took it pretty well.

He wiped his lips and swallowed the fallow saliva at the back of his throat. Wiped his face—it felt greasy and old and worn. He breathed and waited for the words to come. And became very aware of his own breathing. Short and greedy and heavy. All at once.

"Um," he said and stared blankly at the oak patterns carved into Murdock's desk. "What. What about Jessica?"

"Jones? Jessica Jones?" Murdock's eyebrows rose.

"Yeah," Scott said, ethereal. "Um. We used to date. Is she...okay? I mean."

"Skrulls kidnapped her daughter during the fight in Central Park. We got her back."

Scott looked up at Murdock. "Daughter?"

Murdock cleared his throat. Loosened his tie. Clasped his fingers together in one another and set them on his desk. "Yeah. Luke Cage is the father."

Scott breathing slowed. Stopped. It picked up a moment later, stunted, and a broken sigh came out.

He looked as broken, Murdock noted. Pulse rate was calm. His face was neither flushed nor pallid.

Murdock surmised he was taking it pretty well. Except Murdock knew better.

"Scott," he said.

Scott's eyes had a glazed look, like they weren't even here. His mouth hung open in a lazy way. Dumbfounded. Flabbergasted. Murdock and his JD and his super-senses couldn't even find a word to describe it.

And he hated to admit it, partially because it dated him so, but in all Matt Murdock's years, he thought: _I've never seen someone this. Broken._

Scott looked away, at the floor. For answers that weren't there and weren't anywhere else. Then he said, "I, um. I'm gonna step outside for a minute."

He slid out, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

Two floors down, he stopped on the steps. Sat down on the topmost and stared out at the street. Sucked a bit of loose snot back up into his sinuses. Rubbed his lips with one hand. Ran a hand through his hair. Started hyperventilating a bit.

Started rubbing his hands together nervously. Imagined there was some inexorable germ on the surface that needed scrubbing out—boring out. And he felt cold. Shivered once.

His vision went blurry next. And the tears started to come, and with them more sniffles.

He looked up at the sky. A perfect fall day with white striations crossing the endless blue. Mocking his sorry ass.

_Goddamn it. Goddamn it. Oh God damn this!_

Then he started crying in earnest.

Leaned to one side.

Sue Storm caught him before he went full horizontal and became a mumbling mess on the steps. She materialized out of thin air—because that was what she always did—sitting on the step next to him.

And just hugged him.

He kept mumbling, "Oh Jesus" again and again, pressing his forehead into Sue's shoulder and feeling bad for ruining that nice pantsuit and hoping his stupid little tears didn't ruin the wool and wondering how he was going to reimburse her for that he didn't have any money the accounts were closed or in the name of Peggy oh God damn it Peggy the fucking wife how to deal with that one and what happened to Cass—

"Scott." The voice was Sue's. Calm and soothing and so typically Sue that it put Scott in mind of a better time. A happier time.

Scott lifted away from Sue's shoulder. Looked at her through bleary, teary eyes.

"I knew about Jessica and Luke," he choked out. "I knew about the kid." He looked skyward. "It's just."

"What, Scott?"

Above, the sky was still mocking him. He wiped his eyes clear.

"Jessica?"

"Yeah." He was silent for a long moment.

"It's not just about Jessica," Sue said. "Is it?"

"No," Scott said. "Its...it would have been nice. To have someone to come back to."

She hugged him, pulled him close again.

And tried to think of how in the precise Hell she was going to tell him about what Cassie was doing with her life.

"Scott, I'm so sorry."

"I know," he said and sighed. "So am I."

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	3. The Fact of the Matter

**Author's Note: **I must admit with some amusement and some hesitation that this story originally started out on a simple premise: follow Scott Lang's resurrection and see where it took me. About five lines into the session with Murdock in the last chapter, I realised watching Scott fill out tax and estate forms was going to be drier than toast. So I've made up some ancillary plot devices which I hope out us in mind of the original Avengers and their inherent 'derring-do' nature—particularly regarding Loki's views on that subject. Being a god after all, I figure he's one for nostalgia. So, what the story's become is something more interesting as we follow three disparate tracks. Believe me, this wasn't in the notes, but I'm kind of happy with where it's going. I hope you are as well, Readers. A note on Blake Burdick: the 17th precinct indeed exists in Manhattan. You can find the fine men and women that serve there on East 51st Street. Parts of Scott's conversation below come thematically from the excellent Tom Hanks film 'Cast Away', while my model for Peggy is Annette Bening, especially as seen in 'American Beauty'. Finally, I have no idea what precisely Peggy Rae Lang's real maiden name is and I'm not sure if she was ever given one in the comics. If someone happens to find one that contradicts mine, I'll gladly recant.

* * *

**The Upper West Side.**

**Billy Kaplan's Journal:**

The parentals are out of town for the weekend. Dad's exploring an offer to teach Law at UMass, instead of, er, meting it out every week in the Manhattan Superior , that was a lame turn of phrase but it works. Mom's gone with him—mostly to explore every Starbucks that side of Providence, but also for the mushy-gushy reason.

The one I've been batting around in regards to telling Ted.

The L word.

Dreaded letters of the seven seas.

'Course, it's entirely true.

I do love Ted.

As it so happens, I love everything about him but I think I'd sooner rip every hair from my body than admit it. Still, he does have it going on and that's okay to admit. The earrings are pretty cool—definitely not the sort of thing I would go in for, despite the fact that I already have, but still pretty hot. God, I just used the word 'hot' in relation to my boyfriend. God, I just used the word 'boyfriend'. What's happening to me?

I fear I'm growing up.

16 yrs old just doesn't get you what it used to.

An especially erudite 16, though, if I do say so myself. Maybe it's something in the drinking water?—getting into my system, my bloodstream and my brain, and ensmartening me.

Ensmarten. I just made up a word. (NB, tell Tommy about it later!)

And Ted.

The earrings. And the hair. I'm a sucker for blondes. The smile. The eyes. A complete goddamn package.

And the way he just so conveniently happens to look in the Hulkling suit?

Woof.

Just heard the front door close. It'll be Ted.

I'm going to wrap this up and bound down the steps to meet him—he'll already be sprawled on the couch with a Red Bull, flipping desperately through the channels looking for 'Top Gear'.

How the hell am I gonna explain this Loki thing to him?

And to Cass?

* * *

**Castle Doom.**

Often Loki found himself confronted with constructions of a double-standard from his brothers. Usually Balder, but not infrequently one of the others. He couldn't be bothered to know their names or even care. Partially, this was by design. Asgardians were by their very nature long-lived. They were gods. An overseen fact, much like the nose on Loki's face; one that escaped notice if not brought up once or twice a millennium.

It was a small, insular group. What with gods being what they are.

But the foundation of the issue—the dyad upon which the realm had not been built but which it now existed—was that it was Loki and Thor's world.

The rest of them were simply living in it.

Double-standards were counter-intuitive.

Exile had only broken the Thunder God marginally, which caused Loki great consternation. And yet little surprise. It hadn't been a shock that Thor still ambled around the world of Men as a stray in the gutter might, with his head yet held in a misplaced and prideful heft. But it certainly set Loki in a foul mood to see him doing it with that characteristic stiff upper lip of his.

Loki retreated to Earth, for the duration of one of their weeks, for private dismay. It was that, or rip Balder's arm off in a public display of anger.

And at this point, that trail could not be countenanced. The goal remained the same for the God of Mischief & Lies—who ever saw much and affected more, and had his leather gauntlets, as they say, stuck into many pies.

At this delicate stage, he could not risk a public stage for middling emotions.

So he internalised it. Let it boil.

Being a god, after all, he had the anger of a thousand lifetimes festering within.

Being a god, after all, he could deal with that.

He stood a metre from the gilded throne of the Lord of Latveria, his gracious host who in his wisdom and magnanimity had seen fit to shepherd the Asgardians, bereft of their home, to a new age.

One carved in Loki's own graven image.

Out of nowhere, he chortled. A voiceless affair, motivated by his encounter with the young mage in his 'Manhattan' earlier.

Young Master Kaplan's was a hard shell. But it could be cracked.

Loki had put the first stress fractures in it by mention of the mage's romantic consort. The Kree-Skrull half-breed.

_Gods, how these humans repulse_, Loki thought.

'Construction Hugo'. That was the name the young master devised. Loki had sensed it by an entirely elementary probe into the boy's mind—one which the boy hadn't even noticed.

Loki smiled.

Of course he enjoyed the Nyarlathotep approach. 'Shape-changing' was such an ugly term, but it had its adherents. And benefits. The obvious one was subterfuge, but also anonymity.

Since it was Loki's raison-d'etre anyway, the creation of mistrust came as naturally as breathing. Doing so in the guise of 'Lawrence'—a simple mono-name from someplace called Iowa, who, despite his comely avocation of construction and contracting, read Marx and sympathised with Charles Manson and thought every deviant and thief ought to be subjected to 'Old Sparky'? That was better than any death trap.

All Loki had to do was sit there and let it happen. The humans would sign on willingly, if given a genius loci for their hate.

And now the world was so much more interesting. Given Osborn's proclivities for dealing under tables many and manifold, Loki's existence became one of ceaseless joy and boundless optimism.

Yet in his quiet moments he ever regretted the actions caused by his hand that created the Avengers to begin with. But he could—would—always deal with them later. The better things lay with the rabble. Mortals, who bandied about in their little spheres with their little problems.

For a god sufficiently motivated and overqualified? It was, in their own words, 'fish in a barrel'.

He stopped and slunk slowly into the throne, coming to rest in a low posture. His arms stretched out on the velvet and gold armrests, his legs bent over the edge, heels in abutment of the clawed feet. His breathing stopped. He looked at the ceiling: a row of chandeliers running from the throne and the dais down to the oaken door, on hinges built by the Romanian impaler, bathed the hall in dim warmth.

_What fools these mortals be._

The fact of the matter was that Victor had raised Scott Lang from the dead, intending to use him as a psychological weapon against his hated nemesis, Reed Richards. But matters changed, and Victor abandoned Lang. Relinquished him back to his heroic fraternity—who would doubtless have no clue how to handle Lang.

The resurrection magics Victor used wouldn't last forever. Sooner, quite rather than later, Lang's very essence would begin to break down. And in his dying rage, Lang would exact revenge on his reanimators.

For his own part, the God of Mischief longed to avoid that fight. And the very distinct possibility of righteously angry superheroes on his doorstep.

Despite the secret little thrill he got from fighting the Avengers.

Loki stood from the throne and went to the windows, a wide expanse of open cathedral-high crennellations facing west.

The fact of the matter was that Billy Kaplan had stood up to Loki. Had faced down the God of Mischief with nary a glint in his eye. Hadn't even flinched. Loki resented that.

Billy Kaplan had made himself a powerful enemy, yet didn't seem to care.

The fact of the matter was that Billy Kaplan and the rest of his Young Avengers had stood up to Kang the Conqueror—

To Mr Hyde, troglodytic pretender that he was—

To Kl'rt the Super-Skrull, though that one was never a challenge—

To the Kree and the Skrulls, all in one afternoon—

—And they had lived to tell the tale.

A God of Mischief with a vested interest in the mystical advancement of youth had to admire that. Despite whatever other misgivings he had on the subject.

Loki had failed with the original Avengers, failed to sway any of them. So rigid with their justice and their democracy.

He would watch young Master Kaplan's career with great interest.

_Time makes all things possible...

* * *

_

**Billy Kaplan's Journal:**

Dinner went better than I'd expected. Amazing what I did with a couple of eggs and some Aunt Jemima. Pancakes, much less the whole idea of breakfast for dinner, is one of life's little joys. Couple years ago it was Folger's In Your Cup, but now? The sufficiently gifted adolescent cooks whatever he wants. The magic helps, too. Or at least saves me from calling the Fire Marshal.

And since it was Ted, he loved it all. The sausage links and the raspberry jam for topping. Even if the pancakes had been burned-solid bricks of themselves, he would have wolfed them down with a smile and a gleam in his eye and said, "no, I don't blame you for not knowing how to cook."

As it turned out, to my surprise, he really didn't.

"Leave the dishes on the table," I'd said once we were done. "I'll get them tomorrow."

He put up a small protest but that didn't get very far.

Couple of minutes later we're making out on the Davenport, and Ted's boring the hickey to end all hickies into my chest, at which point I stopped it. He put up a little fight at that too, giving me the old and tired, "C'mon" with the oh so deadly come-hither look. That didn't last long either.

Then he sidled up and planted his head on my chest and said, with all the subtle anger of a four-year old, "Okay, Billy, what is it?"

"I had a lovely visit from, er, an old friend at Starbucks today."

The conversation didn't go this smoothly but you get the picture.

"Oh dear God," Ted said. Then, "You went to Starbucks?"

"Har har," I said. "You want to hear about it?"

"Sure."

"Loki."

A silence followed, during which I'm sure Ted's hope of a truly great night together summarily died.

"Loki?" he said. "_The_ Loki?"

"You wouldn't believe it," I said and stared up at the ceiling. "You honestly wouldn't."

"I dunno," he said and wormed his fingers between mine and clutched. "We've seen a lot of weird shit. Try me."

"Said he was Loki. Man, but he looked like some construction slob."

Ted laughed. "That must've been rough."

_Right_. "I don't know. Something's wrong, Teddy."

"How do you figure?"

"He seemed to know everything about me. Wanted to know more about you. And Cassie. And her dad."

"Her dad?" Ted asked. His free hand started tracing circles on my abdomen. "Why her dad, he's been dead for like two years?"

"Yeah." Then I frowned. "I think we should tell her that there's a God of Mischief after her."

"And not try to stop him?"

"Well," I said. "There is that."

"But?"

"This is Loki. He didn't look the part. But I could tell. Y'know. I just could tell. Whole thing was trippy."

"So we go beat him up and save the day," Ted said. His hand moved lower.

"This is Loki," I said again. "The reason the Avengers got together in the first place. I mean. This could be a hornet's nest, Teddy. I think we need to tell Cassie immediately."

I stood and pulled my shirt back on. Ted stayed slouched on the couch and followed me, sheepish, a moment later. Giving the sad-puppy look and saying, "Shucks..."

* * *

**The Baxter Building.**

**Scott Lang.**

He was in the middle of another nightmare.

Sleeping on the couch could have been a cause for it. Not that the Fantastic Four particularly lacked guest accommodations. More that Scott didn't feel. Properly. Right. About the charity. Fact of the matter was, though, that he had nowhere else to go.

So much 'well' and 'however' and 'sort of' and 'maybe just perhaps'. So much uncertainty. Instability.

The easy route would have been to stroll down to Manhattan Chase, open the accounts again—noticing of course how much Peggy had scraped off the top in the interim to finance her little 'cop's-wife' bit—and find a place to go be ignored for the rest of his life.

Maybe East Egg.

He didn't want to join one of their super teams. Not now.

Jessica Drew could do it after coming back from Skrullnonymity.

So could Colossus.

Scott was neither of those people.

And never could be.

So here he was. Balled up on the lounge Davenport with one of Sue's mom's heritage quilts curled over him.

Stirring.

'Tossing and turning'.

Dreamland. Scott and Peggy Verbal Sparring, Round 478:

_"God damn it Scott, when does it stop being okay? When do you get a clue in that fucking head of yours that there are lives here?! Why do you always have to be so goddamn right?! Answer me!"_

And breaking things off with Jessica Jones:

"_I'm going to quote Jimmy V. You know him, possibly the best sportster to ever have existed. Don't give up, Jess. Don't ever give up..."_

Yeah, sure. Loving her enough to let her go make the mistake of her life with Luke Cage. Knowing that that Casablanca bit about having to let someone you love go is really true. That's the pisser. Knowing that in a few years you're going to see her on the street and flash a mutual nod and that'll be the end of it. Or maybe one stops the other one and says, we should get a coffee sometime, and the other says, yeah that'd be great, and then knowing that it's one date that'll never be kept. Not for lack of effort, but because you've both arrived at the worst place a human possibly can.

'I used to know her'.

_That's the worst_, he thought.

_When time passes you by and you didn't even know about it._

_Because you weren't there._

He flipped over and his head burrowed into one of the pillows, letting out an unconscious sigh.

Dreamland. Sharing a bowl of Count Chocula with Cassie in the kitchen. While Wolverine and Pym shared a Labatt at the island, their heads hiding behind dangling pots and pans:

"_You don't want to be like me, Cass, trust me. Heroes are an overrated bunch of guys, and eve if you save a kitten or stop a jumper from the Brooklyn Bridge, it's a hard life. We're not firefighters—we don't get that kind of respect. We do the world-saving that four-alarms don't compare to. Remember when I told you about Taskmaster?_

Yeah, sure.

His eyes opened reflexively. Easily. As if he had merely been keeping them shut this whole time.

Stared at the ceiling, but really at nothing.

Threw the blanket off and stood.

And made for Reed's lab.

* * *

**Now.**

**Brooklyn Heights.**

This is Peggy Rae Burdick.

Formerly Peggy Rae Lang.

Maiden name Peggy Rae Blankenship.

Doing the laundry. Hearing the phone ring. Settling the basket full of Cassie's clothes onto one hip and waddling, uneasy, into the kitchen. Plucking the wall phone off its receiver and cradling it between her ear and a tensed shoulder.

"Hello?" she says and sets the basket on the kitchen island and starts to sort through the socks.

"Ms Burdick?"

"Yeah."

"Um. This is Susan Storm, of the Fantastic Four."

This is Peggy Rae Burdick cocking an eye at that and saying, "I know who you are, Miss Storm," even though she didn't really.

"I have some news for you."

Peggy rolls her eyes and says, "What's Cassie gone and done now?"

"It's about your husband, Miss Burdick."

She freezes, mid-fold, and stares ahead at the Spode shining through the china cabinet. "Blake?"

"No," Susan says. "Scott."

Her face creases.

"Uh. Say that again?"

* * *

**Manhattan.**

**NYPD Precinct 17.**

They had put Scott in one of their goddamned interrogation rooms. Questioning rooms. Whatever they were calling it these days. The lamp overhead was harsh and white, and Scott imagined that if the temperature dipped, the radiant heat would cause those fascinating little wisps of heat to curl away from it. An ice cube on a stove burner.

You think about things like that in your quiet moments. Idle things that have nothing to do with anything, like if you were in Denver and not on an airplane and having sex, would it still count as joining the Mile High Club?

And since Scott seemed to have an awful lot of quiet moments in the past four weeks, his thoughts were everywhere. As big as the world. And none of them really important, if he thought about it. More like the inane ramblings of a loser put out of time and place and trying to find his way back.

_Yeah_, he thought. _Sure_.

The walls on all sides were unpainted cinder blocks. The grey kind that resembled a prison cell—and he was sure this wasn't an accident on the part of the architects.

It had been a simple process getting down here. Too simple, though Scott didn't really think about that kind of thing before so why bother now?

Got up. Called Sue and Reed and said, I need to talk to her, and they both said, okay, and down here they came.

Blake Burdick worked out of Precinct 17. When Scott first noticed him, Blake had been on the 5th Avenue part of P-14's jurisdiction. Had strolled up and down outside the Mansion for weeks, doing the Irish cop thing and twirling his baton around in his hand. And whenever Peggy or Cassie would come to visit, he would make an extra effort to get Peggy's notice.

When the divorce finally happened, Scott wasn't surprised that she'd run to Blake for comfort, for help, and for whatever else someone like Peggy did with someone like Blake.

When that happened, Blake transferred a few blocks away to the 17th Precinct. Scott suspected it was a line-of-sight thing. That if Blake and Peggy didn't want to see him, they wouldn't have to. Not if he worked five blocks away.

Scott grinned. _As if Ant-Man could be stopped so easily._

The door ahead of him, on the other side of the polished aluminium table that reflected the lamp-light obnoxiously, clattered and opened slowly. The hinges whined in their rust.

Peggy stepped in. Looking very cold and ethereal. Her arms crossed over her chest, just below her breasts.

A white button down and grey trousers with black heels.

Scott still gave her the once-over, his head peering over the table-edge as he did.

Then they locked eyes.

His heart sank. He imagined his balls shrivelling up. His mouth hung open.

In the car on the way down here he'd had a pretty good idea what he wanted to talk about. What he wanted to say to her. To tell her.

Now it was all. Immaterial.

His mouth hung open. Because he knew, and he suspected that she knew too, that this was it.

He'd arrived at the worst stage a human being could.

They looked at each other, and Scott swore for a moment he saw a little sigh in her. A slumping of the shoulders. A depressing of spirit. Some kind of vague dissatisfaction or sedation. Directed at him. Like it used to be.

What was he going to tell her? 'Surprise I'm back and I don't even know how?' 'Where's my daughter, did she grow up to be a rampaging bitch like you?' 'Are you still leaving a trail of human wreckage or did Blake dump you?'

"Hey," he merely said.

She said nothing. One hand, trembling, shuttered out and grasped the chair at the other end of the table. Pulled it out and then the rest of the body followed. Like some stunted robot, she sat in the chair. Looked like maybe she was about to projectile some vomit in his general direction.

And what was she going to say? 'Gee, I'm sorry I ran off and moved on without you?' 'Are you expected maybe a reconciliation?' 'Oh you were dead but now you're back, is this some fucking trick, Scott?'

_God_...

He made the first move. "Look I don't care about anything. I'm not gonna say I'm surprised you even showed up. I'm not even gonna say that it means you still care about me, because I think it's pretty fucking obvious you don't and never did. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. Otherwise the last fifteen years of my life wouldn't have happened. I just needed to see you. I needed to do something here and you're looking at it. Okay?"

She spoke, staring at the table, one hand covering her mouth, probably stifling a breakdown. "You died."

"I know," he said. "I was there."

"I mean," she said. "We had a funeral. At the Mansion. Everyone was there. Funeral. Coffin."

"Coffin?" he said and their eyes met again. "What was in it?"

Her eyebrows rose and fell and her head inclined slightly. "Well, everyone put something in."

He leaned forward. In a focused voice he said, "What did you put in?"

"Those letters, Scott. All those letters you wrote me. From High School until...until you went to jail." Then she started weeping.

He sat back in his chair. Waited a moment.

So she had carried a torch for him.

_How odd._

"What about Cassie?"

Through teary-eyes, she whispered, "We had to let you go, Scott. I mean. I saw your body. There was nothing left. The last thing I said to you was 'I'm sorry', Scott. I was holding your hand when I did that. Your bony, very dead hand. Sitting in some Stark Enterprises morgue out on Coney Island."

She leaned forward. Laid her hands on the table and buried her head in them and the crying came steadily.

He clasped his hands together and didn't go to her.

_Fuck connections. Fuck compassion._

_Think of what she did to you, Scott._

The tough front didn't last very long.

His breathing quickened and he wiped his eyes before they blurred completely. Before a tear could escape and give him away. He spoke and as he went on, his voice rose:

"Jesus, Peg, I loved you. And you ran to Humboldt and said those horrible things and filed the papers. You said that I was putting our child's life on the line—that I was risking Cassie's life chasing after my glory days." He chuckled a little bit, astonished at the surrealism. "And every fucking judge in town took your side! You said irreconcilable differences. That we weren't getting along—was that it? 'Cause it if wasn't please stop me! Tell me, Peg, were you grabbing your ankles for Blake before or after you signed the papers?!"

She shot out of her chair. Slammed her fists on the table and screamed it at him.

"Shut up!"

He mirrored it. Not willing to give in. Slammed his own fist on the table.

"I want to know! Was I in some way unpleasing to you? Was the idea of fucking a goddamned cop just too romantic to pass up?! What about a goddamned Avenger, huh?! You know, I saved the world too goddamn it. I was a hero!"

Her head came up to look at him slowly. Face red, mascara streaming across her temples and down to her jawline along with teary tributaries.

"Scott," she said and it was hardly audible. "You're the love of my life. I had to do what was best for Cassie."

That did the trick.

He sat back down slowly. Deflated.

"I love you," she said. "And I love Cassie."

"And Blake?"

It was a stupid question. But he had to know.

She nodded. Sucked more snot back into her sinuses, and touched a hand to her forehead.

And waved the other one away idly. The silent 'don't look at me'.

"So," she whimpered and ran both hands through her hair and sucked more snot. "Just go, Scott." She waved toward the door. "I deserve it. Fucking. Go. Neither one of us deserves the other. I'm sorry I wasted your time, Scott. Your life..." And the crying started again in earnest.

Five minutes passed. Near the end, her voice cracked as she tried to contain her tears. Then she slapped herself and said "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Through clenched teeth she let out a steady breath.

Across the table, Scott was nearly catatonic. His eyes didn't move from her the whole time. His jaw was clenched, either in anger or for some other reason. He couldn't tell.

He bowed his head and wiped his eyes. Pursed his lips and stood.

Went to Peggy and helped her to her feet.

Hugged her.

Which turned into a kiss, which both of them allowed.

She pulled away.

"I loved you, too," he said. "But the fact of the matter is, I don't have a lot of time left. I need to know how I came back. And who did it."

* * *

_**Continued...**_


	4. Avengers Business

_**Author's Note**_: It has to be said that while I'm a little let down that this story isn't getting the press I'd hoped for, I none the less continue to be happy and surprised with the directions in which I'm going. The notes and first few drafts originally called for The Hood to be our ambusher at the end of this instalment. But I couldn't get past my dislike for Parker Robbins, so I've amended it somewhat. The Cabal continues to cast long shadows across this story, and we're getting closer to a confluence or two: by the end of this instalment, theoretically at least, everyone will be (or will be on the way to) where they need to be for our big finale. And of course the Good Doctor has yet to rear his head, which means I'm going to have to put some creativity to work in earnest when he shows up in the next exciting episode (!). Elsewhere, I hope I haven't deluded your senses, Fair Readers, with my portrayal of Billy and Teddy's relationship. As much as I'm a fan of the bedroom conversation--that hallmark, I suppose, of married couples everywhere, at least in fiction--I've yet to find a good way to put it in here in regards to the two of them and in so doing reflect some essential element of that relationship. Sort of a mirror of Scott and Peggy's early years, now that I think about it. Dinner last chapter was a start. I suppose this story is, or has become, as much about Scott and Cassie and Peggy, as it has about the two of them. Interpersonal relationships and all that. Anyway. Happy reading. And utilise the end of your seats for the arrival of the Lord of Latveria. Or not. :)

* * *

**Manhattan. **

**4:30 pm.**

**NYPD Precinct 17.**

Scott walked out the front doors with an odd sort of feeling in his legs. They were heavy and light all at once. More of the same. Feeling like he wasn't really here. Had been going through the motions, and for some time now, too.

Worse, that his whole life had been one giant mess. One giant barbiturate, soothing him into blissful stupidity and obsolescence.

Of course, in his own mind it wasn't that poetic. It was a little simpler.

The sky was still shining, the birds were still singing and God's beautiful day was still mocking him when he got to the bottom of the steps and pulled the car door open. Susan, dear old Susan Storm who grew up and married Reed and yet kept her own name for her own reasons. Dear old Sue was the driver. The car was a 46 Ford, probably borrowed from Johnny. Jet black with reflective chrome effects and mirrors that gleamed Scott's dishevelled visage back at him as he pulled the door open and flopped down on the back seat. And pulled the door shut, while the bolts creaked in their age.

The unplanned beard looked worse. Here he was, dead for four years, laying on some morgue aluminium slab of a table, less a man or even a corpse than a man-shaped bundle of charred detritus. And now, with the Brooks Brothers suit hanging so disaffected and so unbelongingly on him, the tie loosened in oh-so-typical weariness.

He looked like a 5th Avenue refugee.

Fleeing from decadence, from profit, from heartlessness. But not desire.

That stayed.

He rested one elbow on the armrest, propping it up to rest his scruffled chin on a checked thumb. And stared out the window.

Reed was sitting next to him. In a blue suit and black turtleneck bunched around a chicken neck.

Scott sighed.

_Deliver me from 1978._

Swallowed a puddle of saliva at the back of his throat. Kept staring at the window as Sue finally pulled away from the cop station.

Then he said, "I never should have come back."

Reed waited for a moment, for a reply, his lips pursed and his eyes searching the cabin for the follow-up to that. He said, "You didn't really have a choice, Scott."

"I never should've talked to her."

Oh.

Reed sat back and his face lost the nervous glaze it had. "Oh, that."

"Yeah," Scott said and continued not looking at anything really. Sadness and distance and some indefinite kind of anger were creeping into his voice. "Oh who are we kidding, Reed. Take me down to the 59th Street Bridge and throw me in the river. Give this up."

"Scott..." That belonged to Sue, up front, driving and looking in the rearview mirror every few seconds like some overbearing chauffeur.

Reed echoed it. "Scott," he said. "I won't say I know what you're going through. I can't say I've ever really had to come back from the dead—not in the sense that anyone in this reality would remember."

"I should go find Dr Doom and tell him to put me back."

Reed frowned.

Scott looked at him.

And said, "But I can't. Can I?"

"Even if you could," Reed said and didn't bother hiding the tinge of amusement. "Would you really want to?"

Half of Scott's mouth went into a smile. Looked back out the window.

"You didn't tell her it was Victor," Reed said. "Did you?"

"No," he said and it was plain enough. "I don't know why."

"You don't think she could have handled it?"

"No," Scott said and made a little bewildered face at that. "She couldn't even handle me being Ant-Man."

"Fair enough."

"And anyway," Scott said and waved a dismissive hand. "She can wonder all she wants. She's not my problem anymore."

"You really think so?" Sue called from up front.

Reed said, more cautiously, "If you choose, Scott, you'll never have to see Peggy again."

"Yes," Scott said. "Humbolt told me that too. Anyway, it's done. She answered my questions." And with a lighter note in his voice, almost wistful: "the bitch can't hurt me anymore."

"So that's it?" Sue asked. "Got what you needed and now she's gone out of your life again."

"As far as I'm concerned, Sue, she gave up her vote when she filed those fucking divorce papers!"

Silence.

Scott sat back in his seat.

Quieter, sadder, he said, "I'm sorry, Sue. It's just." He shook his head and his face was locked in a frown, and he went back to looking out the window. "I mean. What was I gonna say to her? 'Oh the world's most evil guy just happened to get bored one Saturday morning and resurrect your old husband?' 'Let's see your cop boyfriend top that—shoot down a zombie Avenger from beyond the grave'?"

"Scott—"

"It's a whole lot of bullshit!" Scott said and he was talking with his hands now. Fired up. Whatever depression was there was gone, or masked. Very well. "Christ, Reed. Your archenemy brings me back and fuck knows why. You want to know something? I'm not as offended as I should be, I think, that I was some dictator's tool in the great war of 'let's fuck with Reed Richards'! Should I be?"

Reed waited and did his scientist's look. Fingertip touched lithely to closed lips. Eyes narrowed to really drive home the intrigue.

"No," Reed said. "Not at all."

Scott looked back out the window, at the ice-skaters swirling in Rockefeller Centre as the car went by. "I should never have gone to see her."

"Can I ask why?"

Scott said it without a beat in his voice. Without a moment's hesitation:

"Because...and, for the record, I cannot believe I'm saying this...but it hit me."

"What?" Sue asked.

"There's nothing left for me here now. Is there?"

Reed said, "A lot's changed. You'll get no argument from me, Scott. Not about that. But we can still bring you back. I told you in the Negative Zone that I'd find out what's going on here, and that's what I'm doing. I'll do everything in my power for you.."

Scott chortled, a desperate and airy affair. "Of course you would, you're Mister Fantastic." He looked up at Reed through bleary eyes. "You can do anything you want."

"So can you," Sue said. "You still have a life here."

Another sad chuckle. Then a sigh. "No I don't."

Pause.

Reed said, "You're no one's burden, Scott. If that's what you're getting at."

The car slowed and then stopped. Scott ducked forward to look out at their destination. Sure enough, right in front of the Baxter Building. With ant-colony lines of tourists ambling in and out with bags on their arms and smiles chiselled into their faces. Happy.

Reed and Scott stayed. Sue turned around in her seat to face them.

Scott cleared his throat and didn't care if it seemed nervous or sickly or something else.

"I told Peggy that I didn't have a lot of time left, Reed. That's true. I'm not you, but I'm smart enough to know that whatever Doom put me on? It's not going to last."

Sue's face creased. "Scott?"

"I need to see him."

"Scott," she said and sounded weary, "you go over there. Waltz right up to Victor? There's no telling what he'll do."

"I know," he said, and his voice was an airy creak. "I'm not asking your permission, guys. I'm asking for your trust. I need to know why he brought me back. Psychological warfare against you just doesn't make sense. I refuse the premise, okay? But I have to know what this is. And why he chose me."

Pause.

"And I need you both to understand that."

Sue said it first.

"I'll go with you."

Scott opened the door and put out one leg, resting his foot on the curbside. Staring up at the building and the sunlight glinting off the facade.

"I think," he said. "I need to do this alone."

* * *

**Brooklyn Heights.**

**4:30 pm.**

**Billy Kaplan and Teddy Altman and Cassie Lang.**

The custom had become more or less informal since they all decided to be Avenger-esque with their lives. The labelling was Teddy's, the idea Kate's: why suffer formality when lives could be on the line. Of course the line was less apocalyptic than that. Really, Kate just hated having to knock and then wait, and didn't feel bad admitting this. And if the choice was to come in or to talk to Blake (who they all agreed was quite close to being Satan himself)? Better to just traipse on in. So traipse, Billy and Teddy did. Let themselves in and upstairs. In the den that so happened to overlook the downstairs living room in a pretty neat cathedral deal, Billy thought, Cassie was slouched on the couch, eyes burning on the television and the two halves of a Nintendo Wii remote in each hand. Waving them wildly at the screen and trying desperately not to get trampled on some 2-D bridge by a guy riding a hog and barrelling down on Cassie's poor elf friend.

"Oh damn you, come on Link! Jump your pointy-eared ass!"

Teddy was standing in the alcove, a foot or two behind the couch, his arms crossed over his chest, with a pencil-thin grin on his face. The light in the den as dim but glinted off Ted's many and manifold earrings. He let out a small airy chuckle and said, "Breathe, Cass."

Link flew off the screen and let out a wail of death.

Cass sighed and put the Wii remote to one side. Turned around on the couch and perched one arm on the backrest, batting phoney romantic eyelashes at Teddy.

"Smash Brothers," she said. "'One slick bitch', as Dad used to say."

"Classy," Teddy said and gave a depreciative smile. "What's going on?"

"Mom had to run into the city for some big thing, wouldn't say what. Blake's on duty. I guess one of the pipes burst in the bathroom, so I've been given the ultra-big-girl task of not going in there. Also, waiting for the plumber."

"Sounds great," Teddy said. "Mind if we join you?"

"No, go ahead," she said. Picked up the remote again and was on level-select. Teddy and Billy joined a moment later, sitting on either side of her, as she started beating up Mario on some race track level.

"So listen, Cassie," Billy said. "Would you be interested in something that, uh, affects you more or less pretty directly?"

"Yep." It sounded mechanical and distant. She was more focused on kicking Mario's pixelated ass into oblivion. "I'm listening."

"You know how I do my Starbucks thing every afternoon?"

"Yeah, you hit on the barista. The one that looks like Zac Efron."

Teddy yelped: "What?!"

Billy waved a dismissive hand and winked at him. "Oh let it go."

"Geez." Teddy rolled his eyes.

"That's your big news?" Cassie said.

"No," Billy sighed. "My big news is that I got a lovely visit from Loki."

Teddy said, "He's been saying it like that all day. Thinks he's low key."

"S'cuse me, Cass," Billy said. Got up and walked over to Ted and bent over in front of him. In a low whisper he said, "Theodore, darling, I love you deeply. Really very deeply, but if you insist on being upset that I give five dollars to our poopy economy every day at three o'clock, when I give you much better things every other day that we're together, I will go insane and I will take you with me! Okay?"

"Uh," Teddy said and his lip quivered and Billy smiled at that. "Okay."

"Okay," Billy said and kissed him.

"You guys watch _Beetlejuice_ too much." She laughed as she said it, her eyes still locked on the game.

A minute later, with the boys still in some really great tongue and lip war, Cassie glanced at them and cleared her throat in an oh-so-subtle way. "Could you guys give it a rest before you sully the couch's good name?"

Billy pulled away and wiped his lips and said, "Sorry, Cass."

She smiled and said, "Oh you know, it's what I do. Before you almost engaged young Theodore here in a minor misdemeanour, you were gonna tell me something about Loki. Right?"

"Oh yeah."

"So what?"

Billy looked at Teddy, quizzical for a moment, and then back at Cassie. Swallowed and was serious as he spoke. "Loki, Cass. Okay? The God of Mischief."

"I'm familiar," she said.

_More than familiar with the little twerp._

"He bid me a visit," Billy said in tones none too apocalyptic at all. "Asked me about you."

Cassie cocked an eye and went back to the game. "That's weird. What's a god with phenomenal cosmic powers doing pushing you around at a Midtown coffee shop?"

"Actually," Teddy said, "that's a good question."

"Doing the bully thing," Billy said and sidled up next to Teddy and snaking one arm between Teddy's back and the couch. "Proving he can intimidate me."

Teddy muttered as he looked away. "Congratulate him for me."

Cassie looked like she wasn't there—her face was severe and Teddy swore he saw the reflection of Link swinging a sword at Kid Icarus reflected in his glassy eyes—but she was. Said, "If it bothers you, Billy, I'll call Kate in the morning. Eli, too."

"This can't wait till morning," Billy said. His face creased in worry, eyebrows turned sharply up at the corners in what Teddy loved to call the 'Angry Romulan'. "I think this is about to blow."

Cassie paused the game. Put the remote down in her lap and looked quizzical at Billy for a long moment. "What, you want to get suited up and go fishing for one of the big leagues? Over little old me?"

Billy shrugged. "Why not? Worked against Kang."

Cassie went from zero to flip-out at the name-drop. Shot forward in her seat and flung the accusatory finger at Billy. "We lost Iron Lad to Kang, Billy. Don't even joke about that!"

"I'm not joking," he said and his voice was calm and even. "I'm saying we're Avengers. We go out and do something about this man that's stalking you."

Teddy asked: "What about El Jefe?"

"Osborn?" Billy's face twisted into an ungly veneer, dissatisfied. "Screw him. This is Avengers business and he's no Avenger."

Cassie's lips were pursed, on the verge of response.

The doorbell chimed.

Cassie growled and it was sort of a sigh. "Must be the plumber," she said and got up, jumped over the couch and fluttered down the stairs.

The rest happened in slow motion for Cassandra Lang.

She opened the door, and froze at the sight of the man in the threshold.

Osborn.

In an immaculate black suit. His arms folded over his chest, the shiteating grin to end all shiteating grins plastered over his wrinkled old face.

He merely said, "Afternoon, Cass."

Bullseye and Venom standing on either side of him, and she only noticed them when they pushed past her and made up the stairs. Bullseye, cackling at his own voice and saying "Hawkeye to the rescue, kiddies!" And flinging a volley of playing cards up the stairs. And Venom. Hulked-out black muscles that looked like man-shaped tar, with razor fangs and a snaking, salivary tongue for a mouth. When one of his bulging, inhuman arms brushed past her she thought it was like toxic sludge.

She heard Billy yelling, and Teddy growling in anger, and thought that maybe he was beating them up.

Her eyes locked on Osborn.

And she sort of went outside her body for a moment. Feeling a sharp prick in her neck and wondering why her vision was fading away.

Hearing Osborn's voice.

"We need you alive..."

* * *

**Castle Doom.**

**5:00 pm Eastern Time. Midnight, Latverian Local Time.**

Looking into the future was a tricky thing.

For the sufficiently advanced mage it was indistinguishable from the paltry conception of time-travel. The only difference lay in perception. Time travel was messy. Inherently. Looking into the future—more innocuous and, to the trained user, of relatively little threat—was easier.

But sometimes it did not work so well.

The mind latches on to a possible future, and then once the connection is severed, it has trouble letting go.

Attachment to something that hasn't even happened yet.

Loki sighed and his mouth curled into a slender smirk.

Human memory was almost as stupid as the things on to which it attached itself.

Because right now—as the sun fell behind the Carpathian Mountains, and as Loki stood at the far end of the battlement, with the wind swirling invisible currents around him—the God of Mischief and Lies was not even in Latveria.

His eyes were closed. His arms tight at his side, the earthen brown cape thrown out behind him in dull flutters from the gusts.

He was looking into the future.

It was a new skill.

The smile remained and intensified after a moment.

Finally, he saw it. And marvelled at it. The particulars were a blur and so not really important, he surmised. Always fluid, always immutable.

Victor and Osborn standing on an ash-heap. Or maybe a heap of bodies. Fighting each other and shooting their silly little energy beams at each other. Parker Robbins shooting at Osborn's ridiculous Iron Patriot helmet.

Loki saw himself, too.

Firing at Parker Robbins.

The image faded.

His eyes opened.

And Loki started laughing. A low and undulating cadence from the deep part of his gut.

Looking into the future was a tricky thing. But this image had been a worthy endeavour. Had served its purpose.

Finally, Loki could see the end.

The end of Osborn's foolish reign. Beyond schemes, beyond lists. Beyond good and evil.

He turned from the battlement and the horizon, went back inside.

The topmost room of the western tower, Loki had converted into a laboratory for his own uses. But then, he thought, laboratory was such a loaded term. This was more Spartan.

More simply, a large round room with foot-wide brick tesserae comprising the floor and the walls. Wrought-iron torches angled into the walls giving off dim flames and no warmth at all.

Human creature comforts were irrelevant.

He pulled his helmet off and held it under one arm. Walked into the lab proper. His eyes locked on Billy Kaplan, two metres ahead and hanging stark raving nude in the centre of the room. Arms strung above him, bound at the wrists and waist and ankles by glinting green bands of containment from magic beyond even Loki's time. A simplistic and remarkable combination, really, of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak and an arcane binding spell Loki had found, eons ago, from Marnot.

Billy Kaplan. Helpless. Hopeless.

His lover, the Kree-Skrull hybrid, hanging a metre away, unconscious.

And the one they called Cassandra Lang, finishing the trifecta.

Osborn and two of his toadies--Bullseye, dressed in his trademark black jumpsuit with white banding, and the one called Venom--were there as well.

Bullseye stealing lecherous gazes at the denuded captives.

The God of Mischief strode forth with nary a break in his stride.

Bullseye and Venom broke away, slinking to the far wall as Loki approached.

Loki pulled Tyrfing, the dwarven sword of death, from the brass scabbard at his waist. Brought it up and around in a grand flourish. And pressed the blade's razor-point into Billy Kaplan's sternum.

The young mage's eyes slid open. Slowly. Roved around for a moment, trying to understand where this was and what this cold sharp thing boring into his chest was. When his vision cleared after a moment, his eyes grew wide.

Loki pressed the sword's razor point further in. A single bead of blood streamed down Kaplan's chest.

Osborn smiled, a sick and toothy affair.

"And now, young Master, the world is my oyster."

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	5. Gatekeepers

_**Author's Note**_: Parts of Loki's dialogue come from the 'New Jedi Order' series of Star Wars books (which are divisive in a number of ways, but include some interesting philosophical considerations), particularly the character Vergere and the novel _Traitor_. Elsewhere, preliminary drafts called for the presence of the Red Skull at Castle Doom, in a nod to the current series _Captain America: Reborn_. We compromised by putting in Parker Robbins, whose essential creepiness I hope I've captured. Regarding the capture of the Young Avengers, the idea is sort of a shout-out to Brian Bendis' first arc on _New Avengers_, entitled 'Breakout', wherein the new team was captured and held prisoner in all their awkward nakedness by Karl Lykos. I figured it could be one of those ignominious running gags; Avengers tend to have this happen to them when captured and many a facepalm ensues. Loki's vision last chapter and admonitions to Billy Kaplan in this instalment are meant to be a nod to the _Siege _storyline coming from the House of Ideas in 2010, which will see the culmination of Osborn's Dark Reign and final break with the Cabal.

* * *

**Castle Doom.**

**Billy Kaplan.**

**Now.**

His eyes fluttered opened and the pounding began immediately. His eyes hurt. His head hurt. Like someone was happily banging bricks against his temples. Ceramic maracas. He licked his lips, dragging his tongue slowly across chapped flakes of skin. Breathed out and wondered why he could see it curling in the air. Then the rest of him came online and he felt cold. His shoulders ached and he figured out that he was hanging up by them, maybe bound by leather straps on a meathook in Buffalo Bill's basement.

_What a fever dream, Billy._

He blinked widely, arching and lowering his eyebrows. His vision cleared and he saw more of the frigid prison. Brick walls. Pretty medieval fare, complete with the whole torches on the walls with dim orange haloes flickering behind them.

_My chest hurts._

He looked at the ceiling but it was lost in darkness. Damn torches didn't even go that far.

_Deliver me from the Sheriff of Nottingham. And another bad pop culture reference._

He frowned. Looked down.

_Oh good. Naked. Put me in the wrestling room and it's a dream come true._

Glinting, glowing red bands wrapped around his ankles, around his waist and covering the goods. He looked back ceilingward and saw his hands bound in the same red energy.

He shuddered in the cold. Underneath the red energy bands around his waist, his balls shrivelled.

Then the poking pain in his chest went up to eleven and he looked down with an irritated sneer.

At the sword point that was boring into his sternum and glinting in the mute chamber lights. The sword that wasn't there before.

He tracked the blade back to the hilt, and the leather gloves wrapped around the hilt with human hands underneath. Human hands attached to bronze and emerald grieves and pauldrons and a gold-green sash criss-crossing a brown leather baldric. And the tousled black hair, as black as the ace of spades, swept in front of the creased and vaguely happy God of Mischief.

First words out of Billy Kaplan's mouth: "Oh geez."

"So surprised," Loki said and inflected it just a tinge to make it a question. He released pressure on the sword, swung it away in a grand flourish and socketed it back into the brass scabbard.

Loki didn't move a muscle. The whole time.

Not a goddamn one.

Just folded his arms over each other, over the bronze breastplate.

His eyes were deep and grey. Lacked irises and just. Kind of.

Stayed on Billy.

"Couple of things before we start," Loki said. "I happen to be a God. The god of Mischief and Lies. I tell you this because you're the new generation, William. And because the way I see it, facing me ought to be every Avengers' crucible. Now then. Everything I tell you is a lie. Everything I've done is a trick. You will find no truth in me. I'm telling you this now because when I decide to tell you the truth, you won't believe me. And, being a god, I would know such things."

Billy was sorely confused. He sublimated it though. Eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Trying to get at Loki's game.

Loki held his hand at his mouth for a moment. His brow smoothed and he looked back at Billy. Silent but pensive. Let out a sigh.

"I'm told," the god of Mischief said with some apprehension, and started pacing around Billy, "that when you and your young Avengers team started out, you went by the name Asgardian. To wit you later changed it, but I wonder. Why did you choose that name? What mystery lies in Asgard for you?"

"Guess," Billy said and suppressed the coming shivers. "I had my reasons. While it's on my mind, can I ask what yours are? I mean, people only really tie me up when they want something."

"The Crimson Bands will stop you from making any magical parlour tricks."

"So why kidnap me? Osborn so hard up for an authority figure that he does your bidding?"

"Osborn's time is up," Loki said. "And yours will be as well. Unless you give me what I want."

"Which is?" At the back of his throat, Billy readied a lugie. Hocking it into Loki's Mount Rushmore face would only piss the God off, but it would prove a certain...unwillingness. Billy could live with that.

"I asked you about Scott Lang, and Cassandra. And your unconscious lover, hanging over there." Loki nodded to Billy's side. As far Billy could turn his head, he saw Teddy, hanging in mid-air by the same red energy bands, as naked and unconscious as Billy had been a moment ago.

Billy launched himself at Loki.

Couldn't move.

The energy bands cracked and sizzled. Restrained him.

Loki got closer. His eyes narrowed and the perma-smile returned. "You have faced down Kang the Conqueror. Mister Hyde. The combined armadas of the Kree and Skrull, not to mention the Skrull Queen's failed invasion some months ago. You also happen to be the son of the Scarlet Witch—and the grandson of Magneto, if that means anything to you."

"Magneto's a monster," Billy said. Made his face match Loki's.

Blank. Hateful and blank and deep and.

And.

Emotionless.

Loki scowled.

Pulled his sword from its scabbard.

Loki pressed the razor edge of the sword into Billy's neck and drew it downward. A strip of blood followed. Billy started to hyperventilate.

Billy let out a tiny grunt. Sublimated the pain and bit his lip until that was bleeding and bands of red were streaming down his chin.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK_

_!!!_

"Your world is ending, William. There is little real chance of salvation. Asgard reappeared above one of your human cesspools fourteen of your months ago. It must be relocated to its proper place among the heavens. Or your world, and everyone on it—your martyr of a grandfather, your poor adopted parents in New York, even Osborn—they will all burn. Why do I tell you this, William? Because you are a flower among weeds. A god among insects."

"That a threat?"

"No," Loki said and relinquished the sword. "An honest guarantee. I'm rather fond of your world, for all its ups and downs. Its death would be an unfortunate setback."

Billy slowed his breathing. The shivering continued, except on his chest and neck, where the wounds leaked hot blood in slow and painful drops.

"You can't stop it," Billy said. "You can't. Is that what you're telling me?" Pause. "The God of Mischief is telling me that Asgard's going to kill us all? Or is it you? Are you really going to burn us all over some, what, some little spat?"

One of Loki's eyebrows, thin and black and really just pretty evil, Billy thought, rose slowly, smoothing out on the high forehead.

"Possibly."

Billy's face creased. Confused.

Loki bent forward slightly. His eyes lit up and the helmet shifted on his head.

"Believe me," Loki said. Waved a dismissive hand and turned away. "Or don't. Or decide that you serve yourself and your species best when you serve me."

Then he turned back to Billy. Billy suddenly free of the Crimson Bands, shivering and jaw-chattering and still naked as jaybird and standing on shaky legs in the freezing goddamn lair of Loki.

"But then again," Loki said and sounded worried and wistful. Raised the Eyebrow Of Interest again. "I'm merely the trickster god. So who's to say?"

* * *

**Scott Lang (AKA Ant-Man) en route to Castle Doom. File # 0418. 2300 hrs local time. **

**Transcript begins:**

_Lang_: This thing on?

_Richards_: Yes go ahead.

_Lang_: Thanks again for lending me the jet. I'll bring it back.

_Richards_: Take as long as you need, Scott. And don't worry about the jet. I can always bang out another one.

_Lang_: Fine.

_Richards_: Is it handling alright?

_Lang_: Yeah. Makes me feel like an airline pilot.

_Richards_: I built it on the 727 platform. So it should. Where are you?

_Lang_: Azores, satnav just said. Plodding along at Mach 3.

_Richards_: Oh good.

_Lang_: Yeah.

_Richards_: So why did you call me?

_Lang_: I wanted to test out the onboard radio. Last time I saw one of these was in my old Impala. OnStar and all that.

_Richards_: I remember. That was the cutting edge stuff. Allowed us to do what we're doing now.

_Lang_: Sure. I just wish I'd have gotten some kind of royalty from GM for that.

_Richards_: Times are tough, what can I say? And 'freelance electrician' does pay the big bucks as it is, Scott—

_Lang_: Kept me on the Lower West Side for a year. Can't argue with that.

_Richards_: True. I'll ask again. Why call me?

_Lang_: Because I feel like I'm not going to see you again, Reed.

_Richards_: Scott—

_Lang_: Look, I know, I know. It's crazy. No crazier than the rest of this month has been for me, okay? You told me in the Negative Zone that you didn't know why Doom brought me back. I don't think it's a mystery to say, 'neither do I'. But I'm damn sure gonna find out.

_Richards_: He doesn't take kindly to the barging-in approach.

_Lang_: I know.

_Richards_: Is this a death wish, Scott?

_Lang_: No. Running out to see why Jack of Hearts was standing on the Mansion's front lawn—that was a death wish. This is a fact-finding mission.

_Richards_: Scott, I strongly advise against this. You're walking into a hornet's nest.

_Lang_: Well, to hell with Loki and Osborn. I want Doom.

_Grimm_: Scott?

_Lang_: Ben?

_Grimm_: Yeah, lissen, buddy, don't do anything stupid, okay?

_Lang_: I'll try not to.

_Grimm_: If you do, though, give 'im one fer me.

_Lang_: Can do. Oh. The castle's coming up, Reed. Sensors are going crazy. Wait.

_Richards_: What?

_Lang_: Satnav and autopilot just died. I think I got a problem here.

Richards: He's blocking you. Crimson Bands, probably. Standby.

_Lang_: Hang on, Reed.

_Richards_: Scott, I've got remote access. Try to keep her level.

_Lang_: Engines just went, Reed, I have to evac!

_Richards_: Scott? Scott, come in!

_[transmission ends]

* * *

_

**Castle Doom.**

The mystical barrier was an old trick. Ordinary human fleas locked their doors or, more amusingly, carried primitive shotguns to deter criminals from their property. But Victor von Doom? The Lord of Latveria and second in line for the title of Sorcerer Supreme?

The Wand of Watoomb sufficed in creating a mystical barrier. Latveria's placement among the mountains was incidental, but it worked out to Doom's favour. Aircraft finding themselves unlucky enough to pass over the nation without clearance would find it difficult to maintain flight level. Much less, their lives.

He had concocted his own Devil's Triangle.

The Lord of Latveria stood on a balcony on the castle's western veranda—a spine hewn from ancient brick and mortar that comprised one of the tripartite wings of the castle. The wind howled around him.

Under the cold steel faceplate, Victor's face creased. Muscles long ago burned to uselessness once again found purpose, bending his features into a thin and painful smile.

Stephen Strange's dethroning had done much for Doom's fortunes of late. The new Sorcerer was a nondescript who lacked both willpower and training. Doom had been angry at his distinct un-selection, for about a week. Then, surgically, mechanically, while rebuilding the Negative Zone gateway, he got over it. There were better goals in mind. Strange's disbarment meant the artifacts he'd hoarded over the years were suddenly dispersed. Cast back to their places of origin.

It took three disappointing and rather unchallenging hours to find the Wand of Watoomb. Dimensional travel, followed by bribing the entity possessing the Wand. Morgan Le Fey's jewels sufficed.

Doom cocked his head to one side.

In the distance, he saw the Fantasticar approach, a sleek steel profile with Reed Richards' characteristically self-serving '4' logo emblazoned across the hull.

_What hubris._

The hull cracked and split. Doom saw sparks spray out, even from his distant vantage.

His voice rumbled. "The Rings of Raggadorr."

Richards' jet took a nosedive. Black smoke billowed from its engines.

He cocked his head, mercurial, at the shape tumbling out of the jet's aft loading ramp. The armour-software zoomed in.

Doom's armour cast micro-HUDs over the eyepieces. Zoomed in on the falling man and caught particulars. A red suit with black circles at the chest and shoulders, and black banding across the ribs and down the legs. A round and hard face. Red hair in a mess. An imperious little scowl. Doom knew him well.

The dead Avenger he had retrieved from Stark's dungeon.

Scott Lang. Alive and well and using his derived powers for their apparent worth.

Tumbling. Free-falling. But growing. Exponentially. Until at last he was as big as one of the ancient pines that, in his most typical of tuck-and-roll landings, he destroyed. A whole line of pines, in fact, snapping and breaking under his prodigious size, until he came to rest just beyond the 'Willkommen bei Doomstadt' sign. And assumed normal proportions.

Doom looked away from Lang. Focused on the jet, quickly losing power thanks to the mystical barriers over the countryside.

Doom flexed his mind.

Guided the dying jet into the statue of Doom himself in the town's forum. A moment later, a brilliant fireball shot skyward.

Tomorrow morning he would broadcast a message saying the incident was a stalled suicide attack by the Fantastic Four. Meant to destroy the castle and destabilise the government even further. By tomorrow night, there would be scores of flowers and wreaths laid at the pediment of the demolished statue. Grateful gifts from a surviving populace.

He kept on the life-sign coming through the billowing smoke and chaos in town. A heartbeat, thundering up the Victor-Strasse.

Doom allowed himself the wistfulness of doubt. He had forgotten the distinct and certain pleasure there was to be had in not knowing.

_How very interesting._

Under the cold steel faceplate, one of the Lord's withered eyebrows arched. Then he turned to one side.

Loki and Osborn flanked the Lord of Latveria on either side. Osborn crossed his arms over his chest.

Saying, "Look who came home."

* * *

**Loki's Chambers.**

Billy was watching one of the wall torches flicker and dance in the gloom. Red-orange strands of plasma, or whatever the hell it was, he wondered, that made up fire, danced on wicker bundles.

"Teddy," he said and craned his head to one side. "Are you awake?"

"Yes. Is he gone?"

"Yes."

"Can we go home now?"

"I'm working on it."

"Work faster," Teddy said and tried to look around. "Hanging like a cow in a butcher shoppe isn't my idea of quality naked time."

He looked further. The light was generous enough to illuminate, barely, Cassie, hanging on similar invisible threads on the other side of Billy. Red bands around her wrists and waist and ankles. She was conked out though. Her head rested against her chest and lolled to one side.

"Loki's keeping us here with stuff I don't even know about."

"The great Wiccan can't escape from buzzy red energy?"

"This level of sorcery is beyond me," Billy said and shot him a sour look.

"Just use some of the self-help stuff," Teddy said. "I can't force myself out. I don't think these energy things work that way."

"Alright, hang on," Billy said. Took a deep breath. Shut his eyes and angled his head skyward. Ceilingward. Teddy looked up. The light was bathing the whole chamber in some dark and warm twilight. Except, he amended, it wasn't really terribly warm.

He was freezing his ne-ne's off.

A couple of feet away, Teddy heard Billy mumbling to himself.

"IwanttoescapeIwanttoescapeIwanttoescapeIwanttoescape..."

Teddy stayed quiet. Thought about giving Cassie, poor unconscious Cassie, the old 'psst!' treatment. Hey wake up, naked best friend, let's blow this popsicle stand.

_They probably don't have these kind of mundane thoughts in Dirty Harry_, he thought.

_Eastwood would have escaped and killed fiddy guys by now._

Teddy made a mental note to watch 'Dirty Harry' when he got home.

_If?_

_Nope. I__f is for suckers._

He looked to one wall. In the dark expanse between two of the torches, he saw, or thought he saw, some really great effect. Or some really creepy effect. Either way he was stuck on it. Some horror-house car crash he couldn't look away from.

Two red dots, hovering in the gloom. Vaguely reminding Teddy of human eyes. Or maybe those Scooby Doo personless eyes that stalked Scooby and Shaggy through the haunted mansion. They were severe and the more Teddy squinted to see if they were really there, they matched it. He squinted and they got brighter. Until wisps of smoke were curling away from them.

Then a shape came forward, forming around the eyes.

Oh damn.

A man, in a tattered suit. Tattered red cape over his shoulders and waving a little. Tattered red hood over his head, giving him the Emperor Palpatine look, except for the eyes which were still burning. Big strong jaw, this guy, and a stone scowl. He looked...raggedy.

A 9mm in each hand, tight at his side.

"Tell him to stop," the man with the burning eyes said and pointed one 9mm at Billy—eyes closed and entranced and oblivious.

Teddy merely eked out, "Um." Then raised his voice: "Billy. Cut it out. Come on, Bill."

Billy's eyes slid open. His head ratcheted to Teddy with another dirty look.

"I almost had it," he said.

Teddy was nodding to one side. To the burning-eye fellow now pointing one gun at each of them.

Billy looked puzzled for a second, then saw the burning-eye fellow.

He said, "Oh shit."

"Evening, Billy."

Teddy, rubbernecking: "Huh?"

"The Hood," Billy said. "Parker Robbins."

Teddy looked at him awkwardly. "Uh, pleased to meet you?"

Robbins cocked his head. "Charmed," he said. Gestured at Billy and Teddy and Cassie.

The red bands binding them dissipated. They hovered in the air a moment later, then Robbins lowered them. Regarded them silently, quizzically, for a moment. Then pointed at Teddy's chest.

Their suits reappeared on them.

"Gee," Teddy said and massaged his back. "Polite."

Robbins stalked forward.

Then he changed.

The human face gained beastly features; a hideous maw with razor teeth and a snaking salivary tongue. Inhuman claws wrapped around Teddy's throat.

Teddy saw another claw wrap around Billy, muffling his screams.

Then there was darkness.

* * *

**Outside.**

By the time he got to the front gates—

Up the hill on which the castle sat and stared down over Doomstadt—

Across the moat with twin crocodiles floating in the muck and staring up t Scott, which he thought was terribly clichéd—

And slammed the wrought-iron ringer against the portcullis—

—Scott Lang assumed his normal size.

He only rang once before the portcullis opened. Pulled up on hidden pulleys in the stone walls, the iron clattering under the stress. Like it hadn't been opened in decades.

He walked slowly through the stone archway. The courtyard ahead was dirty. Littered with piles of dead leave and detrital fauna. The wind kicked up and carried them in a lazy twister, then died. Another archway, a broad oak gate hanging open.

Scott swallowed the pool of saliva at the back of his throat and walked through.

Torches hanging three meters above him, on iron rings riveted into the stonework, flickered to life as he made his way down the passage.

_He knows I'm here._

_Motherfucker's waiting for me._

The second archway ended in another goddamned courtyard, and for a moment Scott wondered if this was some quantum trap. If he had taken a wrong step and Doom had consigned him to some time loop.

Oddly, he thought of the castle level in Super Mario Bros.

_I spent High School trying to beat that damned castle._

_Do it the right way or be stuck forever._

At the far end lay a wide staircase. Cast in bright Carrara marble, with Wicked Witch of the West eagles on either side, wings spread wide, staring at the entrant.

Scott went past them confidently. Staring ahead but not really staring at anything.

Through an antechamber. An oaken door that pushed open on ancient and rusting hinges.

Scott's pace slowed when he entered the throne room, and he happened to look at the portrait hanging on the foyer wall.

Larger than life. In an impossibly ornate gilded frame. A young woman in a simple purple dress. Dark hair, deep eyes, a face rounded as it smiled at him. He kept his pace but time slowed for a moment as he admired her beauty. And she was beautiful. Alternately sad and happy, learning how to be both. Or maybe, he thought, more simple than that. Just. Content.

At peace.

He wondered who she was. And why she was so. Prominent.

And he wondered why he hadn't seen anyone. Did Doom get the memo?

Then he looked away from the portrait.

And saw them.

Three of them, at the far end of what he figured was the throne room—what had been, in a former life, a chapel. The high stain-glassed windows were still there. The room was empty, save for a bold red runner in velvet going up the middle to a stone dais and the gilded throne. Holding.

Him.

Doom. Sitting in his throne, his fingers steepled in front of his faceplate. Looking like Skeletor and King Lear all at once. Loki and Osborn on either side of him, each with their own shiteating little grins. Bullseye, in his characteristic black and white suit with the cockamamie white bulls-eye on the forehead, was standing next to Loki, with twin crossbows pressed into the foreheads of two kids: one of them, a blonde, in a sleeveless leather get-up. The other, black hair with a metal band around it, red cape and similar black get-up. Both of them on their knees, their arms behind their heads. Execution-style. They locked eyes on him. Seemed to recognize him, because the black-haired kid's eyes lit up.

Scott frowned.

Doom sat forward in his throne and lowered his arms. Iron fingertips clutched the lions-heads at the front of the armrests.

"Where do we begin?" Doom asked.

Scott glanced at the captive kids and then at Doom.

_You won't get another shot at this._

_You can either save those kids, or get Doom to help you. Not both. It doesn't work that way._

_Fuck it._

"They're children, Doom. Let them go. Your quarrel is with me."

Loki laughed. Incidentally and aloud and in the high affect of the supremely amused. "You think you can save them?" he asked. And laughed again.

"You," Doom said, "have questions that only I can answer. Is this correct?"

"Yes," Scott said.

"Then I shall honor the effort you have put into this endeavour. Would you expect less from me?"

"Let them go," Scott said. "Or so help me."

"Or what?" Osborn cut in. His voice was nasal and annoyed. His face was old and leathery and stuck in a glare. "You'll wreck up the place?"

"I'll say it again, Doom—"

Doom looked at Osborn. Said, "Norman?"

"They're here because of you!" Osborn practically yelled it. "You went off and got blown to Hell by someone who didn't have any business being on the Avengers to begin with. Jack of Hearts, Wanda Maximoff. It makes no difference. After you died, everything changed. Vision died, too. Your She-Hulk went a littel crazy. Wanda went missing—"

Scott fired back, throwing the finger of accusation at Osborn. "Matt Murdock told me all this already!"

"Oh really?" Osborn asked. With a pliant look and fake sympathy: "Did he tell you that he also runs the ninja cabal known as The Hand, too?"

Scott was silent. "No," he said.

"And that any world that gives power to people like us must have something _wrong _with it?"

"I figured that part out on my own," Scott said. Then he gestured toward the kids again. "Let them go. They mean nothing to you."

Loki, in a suave and disturbing voice: "Oh yes, they do."

"The children you now see, Scott Lang, are the new generation. They have called themselves 'Young Avengers' and model themselves accordingly on your God of Thunder and Dr Banner," Doom stood. "Now, they are in thrall to us. We who are the new gatekeepers of this Earth, Scott Lang."

Scott said, "Bullshit," through gritted teeth. "The Avengers will stop this. Just like they always did."

"The Avengers," Osborn said. "Work for me now."

Scott's eyes narrowed. He cracked his knuckles. "Then it looks like I'm all that's left."

Osborn shook his head. Disappointed. Vastly disappointed.

"Don't you get it?" he asked. "There's nothing left for you anymore."

Two human shapes materialised on the dais next to Osborn. Someone Scott didn't recognize, wearing a tattered red hood. Holding another kid—a girl—on her knees. Same execution-style look as the other two. Scott couldn't see her at first—the hooded character with beastly claws clutching a 9mm against her forehead—blocked his view.

Then the hooded character turned. Took the 9mm around and pressed it deeper into the base of her skull.

Scott's heart sunk.

He knew her instantly.

She was wearing a red and black suit. His suit. Her hair, long and blonde, hung in curls in front of her face. When she looked up from the floor to see him, they slid away. She knew him instantly, too.

Her eyes welled up. Her lips quivered.

She merely said, "Dad?"

He looked at her with an odd and otherworldly uncomprehension.

_Cassie._

_Oh God._

Then he looked at the villains on the dais.

And launched himself at Bullseye...

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	6. Always Watching

_**Author's Note**_**: **Two clarifications. First, I'm not sure that Scott Lang ever showed evidence of being able to grow like he did to break his fall last chapter. This is the price I pay for thinking of Henry Pym (and even Bill Foster—remember him?) when I shouldn't. Second, on reading volume 1 of 'Young Avengers' it appears Billy Kaplan's dad is a cardiologist and I implied he was a lawyer. Both cases, my bad. Elsewhere, we've managed references to David Bowie, _The Lord of The Rings_, Star Wars Episode IV, Brian Bendis' 'Mighty Avengers' run, Frank Miller's seminal 'Daredevil' run and the cyber-noir (and all around spacy yet amazing) film 'Blade Runner'. Loki even uses a line from _The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger_ by Stephen King, edited for his crazy crush on all things Avengers, of course.

Elsewhere, I left Norman Osborn out of this one on purpose—I'd said all I wanted to with his character and his philosophical posturings in 'Powers', and here he's less a character than an ambulatory plot device, similar to Boba Fett in 'The Empire Strikes Back'. Same for The Hood and Bullseye. Our prime movers are therefore Scott and Loki and Cassie and Billy; maybe even Matt Murdock and Sue Storm, who provided the 'while you were out' emotional torque in Chapter 3. Original notes called for Dr Doom to be more in-line with that film's resident Dr Frankenstein, Dr Eldon Tyrell, but that changed. Elsewhere, Loki's final speech to Scott was meant to be spoken to Billy Kaplan while the latter was in captivity, but that changed too. Scott's POV-shift in his inner monologue is on purpose, and reflects more self-loathing than anything else. The idea that a God, even a God of Mischief, has this unnatural obsession for Avengers stayed, and ends up being essential.

To bloviate about theme for a moment or two: I'd like to think of this story as a companion piece to 'In Through the Out Door', which allowed me to deal with some thorny issues I felt were bogging down the Sentry (who I find terribly fascinating), as well as approach _Secret Invasion_ from an 'after the event' POV (at the time, the miniseries hadn't even been released yet). There, as with this story, I felt the Flying Dutchman idea of a traveller bereft of his place in the world had a message worth looking at, and I've tried to pull it off in due course with Robert and with Scott Lang. Inspiration came in equal parts from 'Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America', _Othello_, the film 'Cast Away', and even _Death of a Salesman_. If 'In Through the Out Door' dealt with the Sentry's essentially self-serving and essentially positivist search for a new beginning in a new town, then Scott's story couldn't. It instead deals with the stink of responsibility, real or imagined, the strings that tie people down, the threat of growing up, of stagnation in life and love, and the spectre of the past. In the process, Scott's come off as something resembling Luke Skywalker—the references below to 'A New Hope' aren't accidental. 'Course, this is all academic. Why not just read a good story? That, dear reader, I leave to you. Always you.

* * *

**Twenty minutes ago.**

**Scott Lang. En route to Latveria.**

The interior of the Fantasticar was sleek and blue and angular and trim. It had come a long way from when Scott had subbed on the Four. What started out as an open-air hovercraft on Reed's first adventure had evolved into a supersonic jet that was able to pop around the world in a day.

He sat back and touched a finger to his lips.

_He didn't consult you on this one._

_ You were dead, Scott, what do you want? Reed had to do the best he could with what he had._

_ You were dead._

The controls were set into a long slope of a dashboard. Before lifting off, Reed had told him, "don't worry, HERBIE can guide you through any trouble." Scott took that to heart.

HERBIE was piloting the damn thing.

The computer, which Reed had wired throughout the headquarters, was an integrated AI system similar to, but better than, the system that had run Tony Stark's armor. Reed had designed the first iteration of the _Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics_. Not as snappy, per se, as the SHIELD acronym, but it had a nice ring to it.

Scott wondered with a tiny bit of amusement if the HERBIE robots doddering through Reed's labs were as smart as Doom's famed robots. Or Ultron.

Scott found himself admiring the technical acumen, the proficiency put into the jet's design. The switches were all blue. On Apollo 11 they were hideous matte grey. Budget being what it was. The 60s being what they were.

_Evil people make things glow red._

_ Reed makes them blue._

The console was full of switches too. Built on the 727 platform, if Scott remembered correctly.

There had been an internship at Boeing once. A long time ago.

_Your other life._

Left Coral Gables. Flew up to Seattle to take the damn thing. Couldn't refuse it—would've gotten screamed at. Absolutely ridden out on a rail. No question. It was a slick deal that opened a lot of doors for him.

Right up until the break with John Law.

Everything changed after that.

Scott sat up in the chair, a modular bucket affair, and looked around the cabin like he hadn't seen it before. Sudden alienness.

Finally, he said, "HERBIE?"

"Yes, Mr Lang?"

"How do I open a channel on this thing?"

"Press the oblate button above the altimeter sir. Second in from the left."

"Thank you. How are we doing?"

"The Azores are within one hundred nautical miles sir. In three-decimal-seven-four minutes, they will be visible. Lisbon has just entered on long-range scanners."

"Great," Scott said and pressed the channel button on the rank row. "Thank you, HERBIE."

"My pleasure sir. How may I direct your call?"

"Huh?" Scott's face creased.

"I administrate the systems and functionality of this vessel, Mr Lang. That includes the transmission you are about to facilitate."

Scott sighed. His electronic acumen was being outdone by a damn robot. "Oh. Um, Peggy Lang," he said. "Brooklyn Heights."

"Searching."

In the silence given by HERBIE's search algorithm—which Scott was sure was looking for Peggy Langs in Jakarta, just to be safe—Scott stared at the viewscreen and out the window. At the placid vista where it was hard to tell where sky stopped and ocean began. He let his mind wander.

He thought of Luke Skywalker, standing on that sand mound and staring at the twin sunset, the arid wasteland all around him, the stink of. Being tied down. Being stuck.

He thought of David Bowie and that song 'Heroes', and the utter, utter poetry of two lovers caught, stuck, at the Berlin Wall.

He thought of _The Lord of The Rings_ and the last march of the Ents.

_Yeah_, he thought. _It is likely enough that we march to our doom..._

He thought of 'Blade Runner' and Decker and Roy Batty on the roof of that building, in the pouring rain, and Batty dying and telling Decker about his glorious life.

_I spent the seventies as a child. 'Blade Runner' was big in middle school; none of us knew what the fuck it was, but Mike convinced Shi and me and we camped out at the Hippo-Plex just to get tickets. Mike also dumped his porker of a girlfriend that summer—7__th__ grade is a hideous bitch, after all—because she broke his precious mail-away Boba Fett figure. We were fucking dorks. Little people that thought we ran the world._

_And what the fuck did I do exactly? Tinker around with a couple turn-tables, kept putting off the guidance counsellor question. _

_I never told anyone what I wanted to do with my life and now look at me._

_Back from the dead and charging toward it with all the fucking bluster I can pull._

_Because I have to know._

_I have to try._

_Even if it kills me._

And the first tear streamed down his cheek.

_My life just isn't that interesting._

_Never was._

_Never did a thing worth doing._

"Mr Lang, I've found her cellular device. Peggy Rae Burdick of Brooklyn Heights, New York. Formerly Peggy Rae Lang until 1996."

Scott was pressing his finger and thumb into his eyes on each side, almost suppressing a headache and trying desperately to compose himself. Said: "Yeah, alright, HERBIE. I was there; I don't need every file on her."

"Apologies, sir. Connecting now."

He leaned forward. Scanned the console for a second. He frowned, the typical affair. Lips curled under the teeth and clamped down slightly to look like the bitter beer face commercials. Eyebrows pulled down low and eyes doing a scrutinizing scan of the cabin interior. Almost looking for a way out.

"Mr Lang, the signal has gone to her voicemail. Shall I try again?"

He thought about it for a moment.

The satnav on the console glowed red for a moment. Azores coming up. He looked up and said, "No, I'll just leave one. Patch me in?"

"Go ahead."

"Hello, you've reached Peggy," the thing said through static and tinny distortion. "I'm somewhere where I can't hear my phone, so leave a message and I'll ring you back."

Then the monotone typical beep, which Scott thought was weird for a mobile to do. Then again, he'd been dead for a while. Four years.

A geological epoch, as far as technology curves went.

Scott waited another moment. For some sign to come and tell him not to do this.

"Peggy, I." Pause. He sighed and his lips quivered and he suppressed another round of.

_Of emotion, Scott, call it that for fuck's sake._

"I guess you're still in the city," he said. "Or not answering."

A sigh. A deflation, utterly, of spirit.

"I just."

Pause.

"I love you, Peggy. I'm sorry. But. I needed you to hear it. I'm going to talk to Dr Doom now. He brought me back. He."

Pause.

"I think. I'm afraid I'm going to have to die tonight, Peggy."

Then he chuckled and wiped the tears away. "And I didn't want this. I'm so sad that I don't have you with me anymore."

An echo, sad and pitiful: "I'm so sad."

He sighed. Started shaking. More tears, more wiped away. The glove covering a trembling hand wasn't even sopping them up. It was just. Smearing them around.

"Something wonderful is about to happen, Peggy. You're going to see it on the news tonight, probably you'll even get a phone call about it. Probably from Reed. I wanted to." Pause. Sniffle. "I wish I could have heard your voice again. Just." Pause. Sniffle. "I love you so much."

His finger lay unmoving over the disconnect button. His bottom lip was quivering and he bit it to stop. Kept biting even when he felt the blood pouring back into his mouth. Pressed his tongue against his teeth to taste it.

Then he cracked. Pressed one hand against his forehead and cried.

Cried his goddamn eyes out.

"Stop it," he said and it was barely a whisper. A croak. A choke of breath that happened to sound like words. More uneasy: "Stop it."

_Stop it._

_You're so pathetic._

_So ugly._

He pressed the disconnect button in the next moment. Abruptly. And was sad when he figured out what he'd done. He stared at the button for another interminable moment.

Looked up. The Atlantic Ocean lay ahead, beyond the viewscreen. Flat and blue and endless.

As abruptly: "HERBIE, are you there?"

"As always, Mr Lang. What help can I be?"

Scott cleared his throat. Sat up in the bucket-seat. "Uh, can I have Reed on the long range channel?"

"Of course, sir."

A moment later, Scott heard static.

"This thing on?"

"Yes go ahead..."

* * *

**Fifteen minutes ago.**

**Manhattan.**

**The Baxter Building.**

Reed was sitting, slouching, at the kitchen table. A Monte Cristo clutched in one hand. Eyes narrowed behind crinkled crow's-feet and staring at the formica table but not really at anything. A couple of inches away, his calabash lay unmoving in the glass ashtray. Smoke curling away from it improbably.

Then he felt a hand sliding across his shoulders. Tense, they lowered and separated and he breathed deep again.

Sue materialised standing behind him. Leaning over him now and kissing his cheek and letting her lips linger there on three days of stubble.

"What's wrong, honey?"

Reed was silent for a moment. He set the Monte Cristo down and clasped his hands. Looked at the calabash and then took it, sidling it to one side of his mouth. Breathed deep of the smoke furling out.

And said, "We're going to help Scott. Get the boys."

* * *

**Now.**

**Castle Doom.**

Bullseye cocked his head and cracked a sick little smile--

Scott Lang looked at the girl, on her knees Al-Qaeda video style, with one of the Hood's 9mms pressed into the back of her head.

When Scott Lang flung himself at the group on the dais, Bullseye dropped the crossbows.

Somersaulted over the two little shit Young Avengers in front of him.

In mid-air, he pulled twin sais from his belt. Twirled them around expertly, impossibly, in his fingers. Twisted his whole body.

Landed in a crouch.

Twirled the sais again and took them out away from his body in a grand flourish.

His body stayed unmoving in the crouch. The muscles ached, tight, under the Kevlar armour. The original damn armour, too. Black with white banding. A total blast from the good old days.

The one that smelled like death, ninjas and conquest.

He smiled.

"Damn what a good old trick."

Lang pivoted and faced him.

Bullseye stood. Slowly. Crossed the sais over his chest. He spoke, and put a fake Western twang on his voice.

Behind him, he could feel Loki and Doom and the rest just. Being there. Watching him.

"Lemme tell you somethin'," Bullseye said. "I invented the fake-out. To great effect, hombre. You ain't pullin nothin' I ain't seen before. We good?"

Scott made the first move. Swung his fist out in a right hook. It wasn't his manner, and it backfired accordingly.

Bullseye merely stuck one of the sais out in the microsecond before the fist would've connected.

And cut a deep gash across Scott's forearm. Starting at the base of the thumb and spiralling down to the insertion of the brachoradialis. Scott stopped in place and grasped his arm, looking quizzical for a moment. Amazed to feel physical pain.

He looked up at Bullseye.

His face gave away nothing, but the little voice in his head finally made sense. In all the time he'd been back, it finally made sense.

_Flee. Flee like Bullseye would._

He started to shrink.

"Oh no you don't," Bullseye said. The sick smile under his mask turned into a scowl. He tossed one sai in the air and grabbed it hand-over on the hilt. Lunged forward and drove its razor point into Scott Lang's shoulder.

It worked.

A cry of pain.

Scott fell to the floor. Or, more aptly, his legs gave out and the force of impact forced him flat.

He tried to get up, do a lame ab-crunch to ease the pain. Didn't work. His shoulder felt hot and numb all at once. And he pressed his free hand against the sai handle, lodged somewhere between his bicep and his heart and probably scraping his goddamn shoulder bone. Looked down. Started shaking.

His uniform there was already thick with blood. Blood that streamed out and sought its lowest point. When he turned over on his side and curled his legs into a half-fetal position, more blood came out in a shallow maroon pool.

He glanced up only briefly and saw Loki looking over him, upside down. And Doom.

Felt a boot pressing against his hip, forcing him on his back.

Bullseye. Twirling the remaining fucking sai in his hand like a goddamn police baton.

Then Bullseye was crouching over him.

Running the sai's razor point along the curvature of Scott's jaw.

Bullseye was shaking his head. Disappointed. Vastly disappointed.

"Ain't it always the way, death by stabbing." Then, viciously. An inch from Scott's face and barking hot spit: "Isn't it!?"

Then he grabbed the sai sticking out of Scott's shoulder and pulled it out.

Scott merely grunted. Clenched his jaw and blew air through his nostrils.

Bullseye stood and backstepped.

"Get up," he said.

Scott propped himself on one elbow. Wiped a stream of sweat from his brow. His breath was heavy and delayed, and he waved a hand in Bullseye's general direction.

Bullseye's eyes were manic. Scanned Scott with a focused sort of madness. Bullseye's speciality. His arms were tense and stayed unmoving at his sides.

Finally, he screamed it. "GET UP!"

Scott took a deep breath.

Did as Bullseye commanded. Still clutching the leaking wound in his shoulder. Behind him, he could hear Cassie wimpering.

Bullseye angled his head to one side and his lips parted only for a moment. Some silent curse. Then he twisted in place. His arm flew around like a windmill.

The sai cut through the air.

Slammed into Scott's stomach.

He put his hand against the new wound. Right through his left side. Puncturing the lung, probably. More blood coming out. Scott grunted and took a step back. Imagined the razor end of the sai puncturing his liver and in a few minutes making his insides one big septic fucking mess.

And his breathing started to shallow.

"That's enough, Lester."

It was Osborn, behind Scott, admonishing his prized killer.

Bullseye made a disgusted little face and slid the other sai back into his belt. The tenseness in his body seemed to switch instantly to some dutiful casualness.

Scott turned around to face the dais.

Doom was standing now. His armoured hands grasping a gilded belt buckle that vaguely looked like a capital letter D.

"Why am I back?" Scott asked. "What the hell did you do?"

"The facts of life," Doom said. "Where do we begin?"

He threw the length of his cape over one arm, clutching it tight at his waist and looking like some armoured Napoleon, and started down the dais. Walking at a patient gait and staring up at the row of chandeliers as he went.

"I know your past," Scott wheezed. "You were insane—"

"Be silent." Doom stopped, turning back and regarding Scott with an imperceptible silence. "You were incidental. Human lives," he said, slower and more reflective, "are incidental. You once had the honour of serving on the Fantastic Four, that testimony to the wonder and ego of Reed Richards."

_ Says the man with the castle and his own country._

"I," Doom said and stopped. His head was still high. Eyes beneath the cold steel facemask, surrounded by seared and pocked flesh, stared at the chandelier and the flickering auburn light illuminating the rafters and the gloom. "I once had the great experience of being stuck in the time and court of King Arthur. Are you familiar?"

Scott winced. His eyes narrowed but only a little bit. Weakly. "I heard a story once."

"I have stolen the powers of the Silver Surfer, and of the Beyonder. I have reordered reality and cast Richards' family into personal Hells of my own design. I saved this country from the brink of destruction, and as we speak, our fraternity has successfully infiltrated your government's highest levels. Not even the Skrull could attain this level of perfection—of unmitigated dominion. Scott Lang, you have come to ask why I brought you back to life, only to discard you as one would a mongrel pup? Must I, as they say, spoon feed it to your apinfully dim intellect?"

_ Oh by all means.  
_

"No," Scott said. Wheezed.

_ Please tell me._

Doom said it and Scott imagined his seared face, his mutilated, covered, horribly burned, inhuman, monstrous face cracking into a smile. Underneath that fucking Skeletor mask.

Doom explained and it was nowhere close to the answer Scott wanted.

He hadn't come to Latveria expecting much more. But it would have been nice.

Desire was the problem. Wanting things was counterintuitive. Materialism, say Chairman Mao, is counterrevolutionary.

Expecting a pat on the shoulder from the mother of all supervillains? More than less than helpful.

_Just be happy._

_ Deal with what you have._

_ Deal with it or kill yourself._

The explanation was nothing. Everything.

The culmination of everything, Scott guessed, Doom had against Reed and against mankind. The culmination of everything Matt Murdock had told Scott about the last four years. The Avengers breaking up. Wanda's breakdown. Captain America getting shot and Nick Fury going underground. Tony Stark's rise and fall and the Skrull's fundamental misunderstanding of how this world worked.

Nine simple words.

Nine simple words that had allowed someone like Victor von Doom to exist and to keep existing. To keep spitting in the face of human thought and human decency. To hell with international law. This was personal. Doom had always made things personal.

Every enemy was Reed Richards. Every fight was against the great and powerful Mr Fantastic. Every reasoning was burned pride. Every goal was conquest. And in nine simple words, everything Scott Lang knew about Dr Doom, every guess and wild guess and conspiracy was proven right.

Nine little words.

"What better way to prove your apparent heroes useless?"

_Of course._

_Sure. What better fuck-you to the entire idea of heroes, of being colleagues and blood brothers and honorable fighters?_

Than to turn one of their friends and teammates against them.

That was it, and when he figured it out, Scott's heart broke even more.

He was a tool.

_ When I was in middle school, Shi called me a tool for listening to ABBA. I called him a tool for crushing on Travolta._

_ This is different._

_ This is the grown-up world, Scottie._

_ You were never here._

_ You stayed in your little starry fantasy, making Peggy grab her ankles every other night for years, until she was the one that left Neverland._

_ There are lists of these metaphors. All of them work._

_ You never left her. You never really went to the Avengers, or to the FF._

_ You never came back._

_ You weren't even that important to Dr Doom. The enemy of enemies._

_ In a million ways, Scottie, you've been dead for years._

Unnecessary. Unnecessary to exist. Unnecessary to fight. Unnecessary to care about. Chronicle. Fight for. Love. Even hate was unnecessary.

Conquest was Doom's goal. More powerful than power itself.

And with Osborn running America now—

Loki running Asgard after Thor's exile—

_My daughter held hostage—_

And the mother of all supervillains not even giving a shit about his once-grand plan—

They ruled everything. Had accomplished everything.

_And you, Scottie?_

_ You had to go off and die. Coming back—_

_ Being alive—_

Was all Doom.

_Desire was the problem_, Scott thought again and clutched the sai, sticking out of his gut.

_You had to go off and die. Had to wait in some lab and then come back and that just had to be part of his plan, too._

He turned around. Started walking toward Loki. His feet had the same heft to them as they did in the police station. In shouting match #455 with Peggy.

So it happened in slow motion.

_Your entire life has been slow motion, Scott. Your entire life has been waiting for things that never came.  
_

_ It's 7__th__ grade and Mike and Shi are making front of you because you admitted to liking Kelli Hanigan in the lunch line. _

_It's 9__th__ grade and you're talking about how utterly amazing this 'Transformers' cartoon is. _

_It's 1986 and you're cutting into a Laserdisc player to see what makes it tick and missing a date with Peggy because of it. _

_It's 1992 and you're showing Peggy the best time one can possibly have while naked in the back of a Camaro._

_It's 1996 and you and Clint Barton are beating the everlasting shit out of Taskmaster. _

_It's 2004 and you're running out onto the Mansion lawn and telling Jack it'll all be okay, because you think it honestly will be._

_And then this whole cliché stops for you, Scottie._

At which point the God of Mischief tilted his head to one side. Some silent bemusement.

The hooded character had taken his guns off the kids.

For some reason Scott thought of 'Blade Runner' again.

_ "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..."_

Loki's hand wrapped around the gilded sword-hilt at his waist and presented it slowly. Brought it up to the sepulchral gloom of the chamber, bathed in candlelight.

_No choice, Scott._

_ "It is likely enough, my friends, likely enough that we are going to our doom."_

"I suppose," Loki said and stalked forward, the sword tight and unmoving at his side, "you've given some thought to your own obsolescence."

"A little," Scott said. Then he grabbed the sai handle sticking out from his gut. And pulled it out. Blood followed in a thin and bold line and he shuddered and tried to will the pain away.

He let the sai fall from his hands and heard it clang against the stonework once. Twice.

Took a deep breath.

_ Doom's wrong._

_ This is why you came back._

_ To save your daughter from the ultimate evil._

_ And all these psychos standing up there, they so very much are._

"Let my daughter go," Scott said.

Loki regarded him for a moment. Nothing was said and the only thing Scott could hear was the sound of his own breathing. And that wasn't going to last much longer anyway.

Then Loki's posture seemed to straighten and his expression smoothed from the hardened one he'd been wearing since Scott came in. He smiled, thin and fondly, and walked up to Scott.

Lay one gloved hand on his shoulder and said, "Go, then. There are other heroes than these."

Loki looked back and nodded to the hooded character, who summarily hauled Cassie and the two others to their feet and pushed them down the steps.

Loki leaned in, whispering in Scott's ear.

"You're certainly a good man, Scott Lang. Better than Stark. And Richards. And Thor..."

Then he drove the sword through Scott's chest.

Cassie's eyes went wide.

She wailed out "No!" and went for her dad.

Billy Kaplan grabbed her and pulled her back.

The wall behind them exploded, throwing smoke and flotsam everywhere. The hooded character flew away from the force of the blast. Landed on his skull and crumpling at Dr Doom's feet.

The Lord of Latveria scowled under the faceplate and regarded Parker Robbin's unconscious, crumpled body for a picosecond before stepping over it.

Storming toward the flaming, smoking hole in his throne room wall. His cape blowing out behind him in all the false bravado he didn't even have to manage.

He gestured and the smoke cleared.

The Lord of Latveria stopped in his tracks when he saw them.

Richards. And his wife. And Grimm's rocky hide. And Jonathan hovering behind them, the living flame.

He screamed Richards' name.

And his gauntlets exploded in brilliant green electricity.

Richards dove at him, wrapping pliant arms around Doom's gauntlets and flinging him across the chamber.

Bullseye pulled out one sai and went for Ben Grimm.

Osborn. Poor slimy Norman Osborn. Merely ran for cover.

Loki stood there, his sword still boring through Scott Lang's chest, his armoured hand still clutching Scott Lang's shoulder. His godly eyes watching Doom and Bullseye take on the Fantastic Four.

Loki got in close to Scott. Moved his hand up Scott's face, stroking the jaw-line gingerly.

"I hate Avengers," he growled. "I am sorry it had to be you, Scott Lang, but in this world, it is wise to kill an Avenger from time to time to encourage the others. Your human Voltaire said that once, and it is a fitting epitaph ." Pause. Scott started gurgling blood. And shaking uncontrollably. His head lolled back, staring into the ceiling dark. "Lang, do you realise what's about to happen to this world? Asgard is going to come crashing to the ground, and so is Osborn. Everything your Avenger friends have fought for will be wiped out. In one day! The best part is, you shall not be there to see this outcome." Pause. More choking, more coughing. "You humans are as the buzzing of flies to me, yet you amuse me so. You ask why we chose you, Scott Lang? I ask, why not?"

He pulled the sword out of Scott. Regarded the blade with a scowl and tamped away the blood streaks by hand.

Scott fell to his knees.

Ahead, Ben Grimm was pulling Cassie and her two friends to the Pogo plane, hovering outside the hole the FF'd just punched in the castle.

She broke from him but only once. Tried to make a run for Scott, but Ben pulled her back again.

Scott felt something cold and sharp on the back of his neck.

Loki's sword again.

Scott raised his head. It would have made more sense f Loki was going to cut his head off through the trachea, but this worked too.

_Don't look him in the eye. Don't give him the satisfaction of pity. Or shame. Or feeling sorry for yourself._

_ Loki doesn't get to take that from you._

_ Go out like a man._

_ The blade's lifting away._

_ Look at her._

_ She's hardly safe, but could she really ever be? Not in this life. Not in this castle. Not wearing that uniform._

_ My uniform._

_ Oh man._

_ Oh Cassie._

He cracks a smile and lets out a chuckle. And makes sure, somehow, someway, that her eyes meet his. Even for a moment. And they do. She cracks the same smile and he sees twin tears going down either side of her face.

_ I'm so proud of you._

"Cassie," he says. "Run. Run..."

Ben Grimm pulled her away again and Scott could see her face, flushed red and streaming with tears from underneath the domino mask. Her two friends, the blonde with all the piercings and the other one with the red cape and steel headband, joined her. In the next moment, Reed and Johnny joined them, stretching and firing away from the far end of the throne room.

Scott chuckled again.

He stood. Blood was coming from his wounds in thinner streams now, which probably meant that he was about to be clean of the stuff. Which was okay, he guessed. Under all the pain in the world and against every reasonable impulse in his body. He stood.

And looked Loki right in his godly fucking eyes.

_ He's no Taskmaster. He's no Ultron. He's just a God of Mischief who's made a career out of screwing with Avengers. My friends. My family.  
_

_ Rehabilitation starts today, Loki._

_ I'm going to die._

_ And one day, far in the future, I hope you do too. I hope things get worse for you. I hope Osborn goes insane and takes you with him. I hope Doom enslaves you and feeds you to a pack of wolves. But mostly, I hope things get better for my people. I hope Steve Rogers kicks your long-overdue ass from here to Galactus. I hope Iron Man neutronizes you. I hope Thor rips off your head and uses it for a chamber pot._

_ I hope. That this won't be the end of it._

_ But that when the end comes._

_ You and I get to meet again._

"Man oh man," Scott said and coughed. "How much I wish I could drag you to Hell with me."

"I've been fighting Avengers for years now," Loki said with some wistfulness. "I do believe you're the closest I've come to actually defeating one. Congratulations."

_My last chance._

_ To face down evil._

_ Tonight, I think I finally get that._

Loki brought his sword up. Waited. The blade glinted in the candlelight.

Behind him, Scott heard the Pogo plane's jets whining into the distance.

_Don't give them an inch. Never ever, ever give up._

_But sometimes, if you have to, do it on your terms. _

_All the rest is pointless._

"If you're going to do it," Scott rasped. "Do it."

So Loki did.

* * *

**Manhattan.**

It was night by the time they got back to New York. Cassie had given her thanks to Reed and Sue and Johnny. And especially Ben Grimm, who walked her all the way down to the street, and when she hugged him she wasn't sure he could feel it. But he humoured her. She thanked him again, for that and for saving her and Billy and Teddy, and said goodbye.

Spent the night walking round midtown and by the time the sun set completely, she was sitting on the stone bench across the street from the decaying ruins of Avengers Mansion.

The skies were clear and a chill wind scoured Fifth Avenue. At the Mansion, a sagging brick skeleton structure walled off from the rest of the world, aside from a few dying tree leaves swirling up the street, slaves to wind, time seemed to stop. It was an open-air mausoleum. A starlit graveyard of everything the Avengers were. Everything they had been.

They couldn't be anything now.

Iron Man was gone.

Captain America was dead. As far as anyone knew, and his replacement was nowhere to be seen. Certainly the new one wasn't going to do anyone favours anytime soon.

And the slime of all slimes was running the nuthouse now.

The slime of all slimes had killed her dad.

Cassie was in plainclothes—denims and Chuck Taylors and a Human Torch t-shirt under a brown corduroy jacket—standing in what was left of the foyer.

Bombed out, burned up, collapsed, dilapidated, falling in.

Old.

On what was left of the wall, there hung a modest picture in a modest frame.

A prominent picture of her dad as Ant-Man in the lead, looking very authoritative with his chiseled jawline and those deep brown eyes that went on for days and just screamed 'come here, never fear'. Hawkeye, Clint Barton, behind him. And Janet Van Dyne, The Wasp. She-Hulk in there too someplace. Thor and Iron Man at the top of the group, looking forward. To the future, maybe, or just the photographer. Captain America in front of a gigantic Yellowjacket—Hank Pym, at some point in the past, doing a sort of giant man crouch or something. The Vision swooping down, behind Pym.

She even noticed the Scarlet Witch in the picture, standing next to Cap with arms tight at her waist and looking all very prim and damsel-distressy.

She let out a breath.

Turned around and walked outside.

The front steps were cracked and rocky, demolished by weather and neglect, spiderwebs of grass and weeds sprouting up through them.

She stopped at the edge and sat on the top step. Planted her elbows on her knees and rested her head on propped-up palms.

Ahead lay the statuary garden, bathed in the perpetual twilight of the world her Dad used to belong to.

"Grande coffee for the lady?"

She turned around, vaguely spaced. Billy and Teddy were lowering to the ground, wearing plainclothes too, Billy carrying a bag that read 'Dunkin' Donuts' on the side. Teddy had a beverage carrier with three tall ones in it.

"I mean," Billy smiled, "if you'll have it."

They sat down on either side of her and apportioned out the coffees.

Silently, she brought it up to her nose to breath deep.

"Sulawesi," she said and smiled. "You remembered."

"Yep," Billy said.

He blushed a second later when she kissed him on the cheek.

Teddy, on her left, patted her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about your dad, Cass."

"He saved us," Billy said. "He's a hero."

She looked at Teddy for a long, silent moment. Set the coffee down on the step between her feet. Leaned in and wrapped her arms around him tight. Buried her face in his shoulder.

She wasn't crying. Her eyes were wide open and she turned her head to look back inside.

_I know.  
_

The foyer doors were open. Which was to say, nonexistent. Through the gaping hole, a single shaft of moonlight angled down on the wall facing her. And the modest portrait hanging there, precariously, on a carbonized hook, on a carbonized and neglected wall, forgotten about by people who shouldn't forget such things.

Scott Lang, in the lead among Captain America and Iron Man and the others, was staring back at her. Smiling. Watching. Always watching.

_Come here_, the photo said. _Come here, never fear, I'll take care of you._

* * *

**Cassie Lang's Journal:**

June 12th '06

Captain America says Eli's blood transfusion went really well, and that Teddy is doing great too. I think Billy's a little mad at him, but that's to be expected. The day was wacky for all the wrong reasons. Skrulls and Kree and Super-Skrulls fighting each other in the skies. It's all very 'Top Gun', I think. Very ballsy.

I wish Iron Lad would've been there to see it.

I almost wrote down 'I wish Dad would have been there', but I like to think he was.

Captain America and Iron Man tried to shut us down. I still don't know why, but I'm gonna do my best to prove them wrong. Mom and Blake, too.

Billy and the rest of them are at the Mansion now redoing the statues. They tell me they're going to do all the Avengers. I hope they do one of Dad. I hope he looks as great as he did in real life. I hope I do him proud. Because I'm really proud of him. And I hope he's really proud of me.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Also, I love you.

* * *

_**The End...**_


End file.
